Saturn ’s rings are the most striking , and certainly defining , characteristic of the secondly - heavy planet in the Solar System . For many years it was conceive that the rings were primordial , formed 1000000000 of geezerhood ago but late analysis from the Cassini delegation suggest that they are only100 million years erstwhile .

Cassini showed that material from the rings is raining down on the planet and , generate the rate , such a hoop system could only really exist for a little time . While the parameter is compelling , other researchers are now arguing that this debate is far from settled . In a paper publish inNature Astronomy , they point out evidence also from Cassini hint that the ring are almost as old as the Solar System .

“ We ca n’t instantly measure the eld of Saturn ’s anchor ring like the mob on a Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree - stump , so we have to deduce their eld from other dimension like mickle and chemical substance composition , " conduce generator Dr Aurélien Crida , of the Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur , said in astatement . " Recent studies have made effrontery that the junk catamenia is constant , the mass of the rings is constant , and that the rings retain all the pollution fabric that they receive . However , there is still a lot of uncertainness about all these point and , when take with other results from the Cassini mission , we believe that there is a strong case that the rings are much , much older . ”

Using Cassini ’s data , it has been guess that the ringing matter 15 billion billion kilograms , alike to a medium asteroid or a very small moon . The squad focuses on the pot and viscousness of the mob to try and estimate the time elapsed from their shaping until now .

The idea is that the mob will evolve over sentence . The internal bound rains down on the major planet , the proscribed edge is lost to the moons and space . More monolithic rings lose mass quicker . Interestingly the models employed show that no matter what the original mass is , over billions of age they will meet to a value consistent with what Cassini has appraise .

“ From our present sympathy of the viscousness of the rings , the mass measured during theCassini Grand Finalewould be the innate production of several billion years of evolution , which is invoke . confessedly , nothing forbids the rings from having been formed very of late with this precise pile and having barely evolved since . However , that would be quite a coincidence , ” added Dr Crida .

In the study , the team differentiate about the establishment age of the halo , the age of structures within the rings , and finally the photograph age give by the mien of material foreign to the ringing . Confusion between these ages might be suggest that the rings are younger than they actually are .