Saturn destroys its rings at the speed of the “worst scenario”

A group of NASA scientists led by James O’Donoghue published new results from the Saturn study. It turned out that the rings of the planet are being destroyed with a maximum speed – they have about 100 million years left to live.

Saturn has been living for 4 billion years, so 100 million years of life for the rings is not such a long time for it. These rings are composed of ice particles, which are gradually attracted by the magnetic field of the planet. For half an hour, the planet absorbs such amount of water that would be enough for one Olympic pool – this is the worst scenario of the rate of destruction of the rings, which was predicted by scientists in early studies.

Scientists have long tried to understand, Saturn was immediately formed with rings, or they were created later. The results of the new study lean towards the second scenario. The estimated work, the rings of Saturn is not more than 100 million years. This is due to the fact that the process of forming a C-shaped ring took too much time, so it could not appear immediately, reports phys.org.