The rings of Saturn are very young, say the scientists. How did they understand it?

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The Cassini Imaging Team / SSI / JPL / ESA / NASA

According to scientists, we consider Saturn at a very special moment in the history of the solar system.

Scientists have confirmed that the famous rings of the planet were very young – they formed 100 million years ago, when dinosaurs still walked on Earth.

Scientists analyzed the final measurements received by the American Cassini spacecraft.

The probe sent its last numbers before being burned in the atmosphere of the gas giant in 2017.

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"The preliminary estimates of the age of the rings of Saturn required a careful simulation and were much more uncertain, but we now have direct measurements that allow us a lot of it is good to limit their age", said Luciano Ayess of the Sapienza Romanian University at BBC News.

The professor's team published a report on his work with the Cassini probe in the journal Science.

Cassini: mission of "surprising discoveries"

about the age of the rings of Saturn were long gone Some argued that these magnificent hinges of icy particles probably formed with the planet itself, he about 4.5 billion years ago.

Others have suggested that it was a recent phenomenon – perhaps the wreckage of a moon or comet that was facing the planet. .

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NASA

Cassini's European-American mission over the last few months to the gas giant had to resolve this dispute.

In the last days, the satellite was constantly flying between the rings of Saturn and the top of the clouds that surrounded the planet.

These maneuvers allowed unprecedented gravimetric measurements.

Cassini basically measured the weight of the rings and discovered that their weight was 20 times lower than previously thought: about 15,400,000,000,000 or about two. The fifth of the mass of Mimas is Saturn's satellite, which looks like the "Stars of Death" weapon of the movie "Star Wars".

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Cassini imaging team / SSI / JPL / ESA / NASA

Precise mass information has become a key part of the puzzle that scientists have attempted to solve.

Because of Cassini's other measurements, they already knew the proportion of dust in the rings and the rate at which she was growing. And the information on the ultimate mass of the rings made it possible to calculate their age.

The team of Professor Ayesses says that it can range from 10 million to 100 million years, but not older. From the point of view of the age of the solar system, we can say that it is "yesterday".

These calculations coincide with data from another group of scientists who examined last month the rate at which particles in the cycle fall on Saturn – every half hour and the size described as equivalent. the pool for the Olympics.

Having examined all the factors, it is obvious that these rings may disappear "within a maximum of 100 million years," said Dr. Tom Stallard of the University of Leicester in the UK -United.

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"The rings we see today" They are not as impressive as they were 50 to 100 million years ago, and then they were even bigger and even brighter, so whatever their structure, you would be surprised at this show if you were an astronomer 100 million years ago, "he told BBC News.

Cassini's researches can not shed light on the nature of the event that gave birth to the ring, but it was at its scale a real cataclysm.

As Dr. Stallard noted, Satellites geology satellites may contain important clues. After all, once on the Earth, drilled wells in the rock and glaciers to recover the fragments found in the heart of the old meteorite and comet strikes. In the same way, Saturn's satellites could perhaps corroborate the event of formation of rings in their deepest layers.

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