Saturn's iconic rings are disappearing at an alarmingly rapid rate, suggesting they are a relatively young and temporary feature of the solar system.
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A NASA research reveals that Saturn rings are disappearing
extremely fast pace. This and much more on COSMOS.
Saturn is surely the most planet fascinating of the own solar system
thanks to its characteristic rings that it surround.
A study, however, shows that they are actually disappearing.
Saturn's rings consist mainly of water ice that varies in size
from microscopic dust to large boulders of a few meters.
Research has found that the rings are flowing to the planet
like a rain of particles of ice.
This debris orbits around Saturn in a position of balance
between the two perhaps opposing, that is, the gravitational traction force of the
planet, which tends to attract to itself, and the centrifugal force, which instead tends to
get them away. Ultraviolet light coming from the charged Sun.
electrically water powder ice that is then affected
from the magnetic field of Saturn. It lacks thus the balance between the two forces and
then the dust is dragged in the atmosphere of the planet from gravity.
It is estimated that this rain of rings drain a quantity of water that
could fill a pool Olympic every half hour.
This material is raining on the planet starts disintegrating allowing it to react
chemically with the electric part charge of the upper atmosphere of
Saturn the ionosphere. This was used saved tools
connected to the keck telescope in Hawaii. The rate of disappearance of the rings has
allowed scientists to infer that they formed less than 100 million
from years ago. Probably they would have formed from
collision of small frozen moons i whose orbits have been modified by
passage of some object as a asteroid or a comet.
This means that the planet was not born with its rings because of more than
4 billion years. The scientists of NASA are able to estimate
from the observations made by the missions voyager 1 and 2 and by the Cassini probe which
the rings will disappear in 100 million years a really short time considering
the age of Saturn. The rings are also fed from the ejected material
from a moon of Saturn, Enceladus. In fact the Cassini probe has observed
giant geysers emit water into the space that then goes to join the rings.
Moon geysers are believed to derive from a sub-surface ocean of water
and for this reason, Enceladus, is one of the most popular places
promising of the solar system in the search for extraterrestrial life.
We are fortunate to be here ad observe Saturn's ring system
which seems to be in the middle of the its existence.
However, if the rings are a phenomenon temporary we may have missed the system
of rings around Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune.
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