Saturn’s seven rings are much younger than the planet itself, concludes a paper that relied on data from the now-demolished Cassini spacecraft, which orbited the planet for 13 years.
While Saturn’s rings are like cosmic pearls – chunks of mostly water ice, the size of boulders and smaller – those pearls are slightly dirty and only getting dirtier. They collect the dust that flies through the solar system, at a certain rate. Scientists didn’t know what that rate was until Cassini pinned it down, which has helped scientists to date the rings.
Cassini’s Cosmic Dust Analyzer, shaped like a bucket (albeit one with advanced sensors), scooped up dust and analyzed its trajectory and chemical makeup. Over 13 years, it found only 163 grains that had flown in from beyond Saturn’s environs, indicating that dust would have accumulated on the rings at a gradual rate.
“Think about the rings like the ...
