Among the planets of our solar system, there is perhaps no one more visually iconic than Saturn, and, obviously, his rings. However, scientists fear they may not last long. According to James O’Donoghue, a scientist at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Saturn’s rings are disappearing, albeit slowly, fortunately.
We still don’t know exactly how the rings were formed of Saturn, but it is calculated, thanks to the analyzes carried out in recent years of the images of NASA’s Cassini mission, that they are “cosmically young” with an age of between 10 and 100 millions of years, which narrows down the possible theories.
Although Although the scientific community has not reached a consensus on the origin of Saturn’s rings, one of the most resonant theories suggests that the rings could have formed when one of Saturn’s moons got too close to the planet and shattered.
“Rain of rings”
In an interview granted to The Atlantic, O’Donoghue explained that the illos are disappearing due to the “rain of rings”. The term refers to incoming micrometeorites and solar radiation, which disturb the small dusty pieces of matter in the rings, electrifying them and aligning them with Saturn’s magnetic field lines.
This makes The particles head into Saturn’s upper atmosphere, where gravity pulls them until they vaporize in the planet’s clouds. Astronomers believe that this process will take about 300 million years to completely eliminate the ring system.
O’Donoghue said that “this is what we are seeing from the rings of Saturn at their peak”, and although “it is very, very sad that the rings are going to disappear in the future”, he is very happy “that we are lucky enough to see it”.
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