Among the planets in our Solar System, Saturn is arguably the most unique and beautiful because it has a magnificent ring that surrounds it. But the ring that became his trademark is predicted to disappear. How come?
Since we get to see Saturn up close thanks to NASA's Voyager spacecraft, the rings have become a visual treat for stargazers. However, recently scientists were concerned that the beautiful ring might not last long and disappear.
NASA explains, Saturn's rings consist of billions of chunks of water ice that have a variety of sizes, ranging from the size of a grain of sand to the size of a mountain.
The rings are one of the three main components of the Saturn system. Together with Saturn's moons, the rings are a major component of the planetary system, and are generally 10 meters thick.
The Cassini spacecraft, which reached Saturn in 2004, discovered that most of the material in Saturn's rings, a ring that spreads beyond the bright main ring, is the result of jets of water emerging from the moon Enceladus.
What caused Saturn's rings to disappear?
Japanese space exploration agency JAXA scientist James O'Donoghue, in an interview, explained that Saturn's rings disappeared due to the electrification of dusty matter, something caused by the interference of micrometeorites and solar radiation.
Once electrified, these particles are then aligned with Saturn's magnetic field lines. In the next step, these electrified particles are too close to the top of Saturn's atmosphere for Saturn's gravity to pull them into the planet's clouds.
The continuation of this process, which scientists call 'ring rain', will cause the rings to disappear in the next few million years.
O'Donoghue said the ring would last another 300 million years at most. While scientists previously thought that the rings formed with Saturn about 4.6 billion years ago, data from the Cassini spacecraft reveal that they could not be more than 10 million to 100 million years old.