Saturn's spectacular rings are 'very young'

[Eugene]

Source: BBC

Saturn's spectacular rings are 'very young'

By Jonathan Amos
BBC Science Correspondent

17 January 2019

We're looking at Saturn at a very special time in the history of the Solar System, according to scientists.

They've confirmed the planet's iconic rings are very young - no more than 100 million years old, when dinosaurs still walked the Earth.

The insight comes from the final measurements acquired by the American Cassini probe.

The satellite sent back its last data just before diving to destruction in the giant world's atmosphere in 2017.

"Previous estimates of the age of Saturn's rings required a lot of modelling and were far more uncertain. But we now have direct measurements that allow us to constrain the age very well," Luciano Iess from Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, told BBC News.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46911945

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Related: Measurement and implications of Saturn’s gravity field and ring mass (Science Magazine)

[SWBTATTReg]

1. Intense article and neat!! nt

[htuttle]

2. Hard not to dabble in a bit of Velikovsky-ism about that time frame

Did the same planetary event lead to both Saturn's rings, and the asteroid crashing into the earth to kill the dinosaurs? Saturn is a long way from here, but it's an interesting coincidence.

[cstanleytech]

4. We will never know as the asteroid that impacted on the earth 65 million years ago vaporized

on impact.

[TreasonousBastard]

3. Amazing! Neat how they're having fun pushing tourism on Enceladus.