More information about Saturn has been analyzed and reported by researchers in the scientific journal “Science.” It seems that we now know how old the planet’s most iconic features are.
Upon studying information transmitted by the Cassini spacecraft, scientists say that Saturn’s rings are much younger than previously thought. After a twenty year mission exploring aspects of Saturn and its moons, the Cassini space craft was pulled into the atmosphere of the planet and destroyed. The craft continued transmitting information up until the last minutes of its existence in 2017, and since then we now understand much more about the planet. The craft flew in and out of the rings and upper atmosphere between the planet and its rings as many as 20 times, collecting data on their mass and make up. The space craft’s transmissions have determined that the planet’s giant rings may be younger than some of the oldest Dinosaurs. That means that the rings could be between 10 and 100 million years old, far younger than the 4.3 billion year old gas giant.
The rings themselves are formed from chunks of rock and ice trapped in the planet’s gravitational pull. Another recent study claimed that the rings may even be dissipating. The intriguing moons of Saturn have been speculated to contain amazing scientific discoveries, including the possibility of living organisms on the largest moon, Titan. While the Cassini spacecraft wasn’t equipped to investigate the moon for its supposed microorganisms, it did determine that anomalies within its surface atmosphere could potentially contain methane producing life forms.
