The rings of Saturn are much younger than Saturn itself. planethow does he find study published in Science Advances’ journal.

According to a study by physicist Sascha Kempf of the University of Colorado at Boulder, Saturn’s rings are no more than 400 million years old, while Saturn itself is about 4.5 billion years old. The researchers came to this conclusion by examining the layer of dust in the rings.

More independent evidence for the youth of Saturn’s rings: a third article appeared immediately after the publication of Friday’s post. Cosmic dust analyzer evidence confirms that the rings are much younger than Saturn itself. See updated information here: https://t.co/dUhV6xVbTf pic.twitter.com/NmxZJEvgcR

— Creation-evolution headlines (@crevinfo) May 14, 2023

For 13 years, from 2004 to 2017, the team used an instrument called the Cosmic Dust Analyzer on their Cassini spacecraft. NASA for the analysis of dust particles flying around Saturn. They collected a total of 163 grains brought from outside the planet’s immediate environment. Based on their calculations of this material, Saturn’s rings likely accumulate dust for only a few hundred million years.

Saturn has seven rings made up of countless chunks of ice. For most of the 20th century, scientists believed that the rings formed at the same time as Saturn. Cassini made it possible to determine the age of Saturn’s rings. The spacecraft first reached Saturn in 2004 and collected data until it crashed in 2017. Scientists have designed and built a much more sophisticated dust analyzer for NASA’s upcoming Europa Clipper mission, scheduled to launch in 2024.

In a previous study, NASA scientists reported that the rings are collapsing and could disappear entirely in another 100 million years. However, how the rings formed in the first place remains a question. Some scientists, for example, have suggested that Saturn’s rings may have formed when the planet’s gravity tore one of its moons apart.

^{According to APE – MEB}