“New Research Reveals the Infancy of Saturn’s Planetary Rings in Comparison to Earth’s Age”

Wednesday, 31 May 2023 – 18:01 WIB

LIVE Techno – Saturn’s planetary rings are relatively infancy on cosmic scales, forming less than 400 million years ago, according to new research.

In comparison, Saturn itself is about 4.5 billion years old and life appeared on Earth about 580 million years ago. This means life on Earth is older than Saturn’s rings.

Reporting from The Jerusalem Post, Wednesday, May 31, 2023, this statement was disclosed in the latest research published in the journal Sciences Advances on Friday. The research was led by physicist Sascha Kempf of the University of Colorado Boulder.

Throughout the 20th century, researchers assumed Saturn’s rings were as old as the planet. But then doubts arose that questioned the accuracy of the estimate in part because of the cleanliness of the ring, which appears to be made of 98 percent natural water ice and only a small amount of rocky material.

Kempf’s team then decided to examine the accumulation of dust on the ring to calculate its age. Tiny grains of rocky material flow through the solar system almost constantly, leaving behind thin layers of dust in some cases.

Kempf and his team decided to study how fast dust in Saturn’s rings was forming, to calculate the age of the rings.