New NASA research indicates that
Saturn’s iconic rings are not
only younger than previously
thought, but also that these
rings are actually disappearing
at an extremely fast pace. The
research found that the rings
are draining away toward the
planet as a dusty rain of ice
particles. Saturn’s rings
consist mostly of water ice that
ranges in size from microscopic
dust to large boulders.
Ultraviolet light from the Sun
and plasma clouds coming from
tiny meteoroid strikes charge
the icy dust, which then becomes
bound to Saturn’s magnetic field
and pulled into the planet by
gravity. This material rains
into the planet and begins to
disintegrate, allowing it to
react chemically with the
electrically charged part of
Saturn’s upper atmosphere - the
ionosphere. The ions glow in an
infrared light as a part of this
process if the rain is light,
but the emissions dim if the
rain is heavy. This was observed
using instruments attached to
the Keck telescope in Hawaii.
The rate of disappearance in
this ring rain study has allowed
scientists to infer that
Saturn’s rings formed less than
100 million years ago. This
means Saturn wasn’t born this
way, as the planet is known to
be over 4 billion years old. And
when the ring rain data is
combined with observations made
by the Voyager 1 and 2 missions,
scientists from NASA Goddard are
able to estimate that the rings
will be gone in 300 million
years. So, if this rain doesn’t
go away, Saturn will be
ring-less another day.
