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saturn rings disappearing

“If they’re decaying fast now, they can’t have been around that long. "The innermost rings disappear as they rain onto the planet first, very slowly followed by the outer rings," NASA writes. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io, Watch a Spacecraft Punch an Asteroid Tonight, The Truth About That Election Day Asteroid, BepiColombo Just Snapped Awesome Photos of Venus, Venus Is a Russian Planet ... Says Russia, Possible Signs of Life Found in Venus Atmosphere, Asteroid Swings by Earth in Closest Recorded Flyby, Our Solar System Is Shaped Like a Croissant, Perseid Meteor Shower Peaks Tonight and Tomorrow, No, Trump Didn't Bring NASA Back from the Dead, NASA Is About to Study Some Awfully Old Asteroids. For more stories like this, check our news page. Saturn's magnetic field was pulling in a dusty rain of ice particles from the rings, also known as "ring rain.". The planet could lose its signature features in 100 million to 300 million years. “We are lucky to be around to see Saturn’s ring system, which appears to be in the middle of its lifetime,” O’Donoghue said in a statement on Monday. ‘Something dramatic must have happened around Saturn to make them this large, long after the planet itself formed.’. That means the rings likely have less than 100 million years to live. “And they’re going to disappear someday.”. Better start saying your goodbyes. Popular Mechanics participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites. Earlier this year, the team took a close look at measurements of a charged molecule found in the upper reaches of Saturn’s yellowish atmosphere, using the Keck II Telescope in Hawaii in 2011. How do I vote in my state in the 2020 election? The results reveal that Saturn’s rings are disappearing at the maximum rate estimated from Voyager 1 and 2 observations made decades ago. This content is imported from YouTube. "From this alone, the entire ring system will be gone in 300 million years," O'Donoghue said. Saturn's rings are disappearing NASA's Cassini spacecraft ended its historic exploration of Saturn in 2017 and, slowly but surely, scientists are learning more about the ringed planet. And although 100 million years might sounds like a long way off, the time span is comparatively short compared to Saturn’s age of over 4 billion years. Mr O’Donoghue and his colleagues suggest the rings could wither away in the near future, on the relative scale of Solar System time. All good rings must come to an end, say NASA scientists who theorize that Saturn’s famed feature will disappear in millions of years. FOLLOW NBC NEWS MACH ON TWITTER, FACEBOOK, AND INSTAGRAM. But Cassini also found that a colossal amount of organic molecules and water ice (on the order of 22,000 pounds per second) are falling onto the planet’s equator through a different, potentially transient process that could help hasten the rings’ demise. Image: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. According to a NASA study, Saturn's rings will be completely gone in a few hundred million years. 9 Replies to “Why are Saturn’s Rings Disappearing?” laughdead says: March 18, 2008 at 12:58 PM Ian you are a rascal. Scientists studied the masses embedded in the rings and saw a wide variety of textures and patterns, from clumpy to straw-like. The ring rain is caused by sunlight. The new projections are based on the assumption that Saturn’s rings rain at a constant rate, but it could vary. “Saturn’s rings appear to be young,” said Linda Spilker of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, project scientist for the Cassini mission that studied Saturn, who was not involved in the study. Scientists say Saturn's rings could disappear in 100 million to 300 million years. “What we’re seeing is something on the order of about a ton and a half per second,” said James O’Donoghue of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre, in Greenbelt, Maryland, who reported the conclusions on Monday in the journal Icarus. And now, multiple lines of evidence are converging to suggest that the rings come with an expiration date. Copyright © 2020 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. While that’s an almost inconceivably long time for humans, it’s almost a blink of an eye on a cosmic timescale. Election Day could turn into "Election Week" with rise in mail ballots. Although Mr Cuzzi is sceptical of the time frame in the new study, he agreed it is likely that the rings will gracefully degrade as the Solar System matures. Saturn’s iconic belt stretches 175,000 miles across and mostly consists of icy chunks, ranging from teeny tiny to boulder size. Data from the 13-year mission helped scientists determine Saturn's rings are much newer than the planet itself — and they're disappearing. In December, new NASA research confirmed Saturn's rings were being pulled into the planet by gravity. However, the Cassini spacecraft also detected even more ring matter was falling into Saturn's equator. What time is Nasa's moon announcement today and what are they likely to say? With more mail-in ballots, officials urge patience on election night, Americans and the right to vote: Why it's not easy for everyone, Why some mail-in ballots are rejected and how to make sure your vote counts. Assuming a constant rate of ring rain — which Ms Spilker said is a substantial unknown — the team calculated Saturn’s rings could mostly shed themselves into oblivion within 300 million years. “And they’re going to disappear someday.”. Ultraviolet light from the sun gives an electrical charge to tiny bits of ice in the rings, causing them to move toward the planet along the lines of its magnetic field. The origins of Saturn’s rings have long puzzled scientists, who are still unsure if the planet was formed with the rings or if it acquired them at a later stage. Nasa moon discovery: What does finding water on the moon actually mean? Data gathered by Cassini showed the rings’ particles are rather small—perhaps debris from a past collision with the planet, and not as primordial as once theorized. But they’re so thin that during Saturn’s equinoxes, when the light from the Sun hits the rings straight on, they all but disappear when viewed from the Earth. Theories which could explain the origin of the rings include the idea they came about when small icy moons collided after their orbits were disturbed by a passing asteroid or comet. The first hints that ring rain existed came from Voyager observations of a seemingly unrelated occurrence. Updated on: August 6, 2019 / 8:25 PM Stretching some 175,000 miles across, Saturn’s bangles easily outshine the dark, fragmented rings feebly encircling Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. Please see our updated Privacy Policy for more information on GDPR. First published on August 6, 2019 / 12:22 PM. That doesn’t happen to the rocks or dust that make up the rest of the rings. Gear-obsessed editors choose every product we review. Be in the know. “The rings are basically being eaten away from the inside,” O’Donoghue said, adding that the new findings suggest that the rings are younger than Saturn itself, which like the rest of the solar system is about 4.5 billion years old. But the study — published Dec. 17 in the journal Icarus — shows that the process is occurring so fast that the rings could disappear in 100 million to 300 million years. These included changes in Saturn’s upper atmosphere, density variations in the rings and three narrow dark bands around the planet at northern mid-latitudes. The rings probably formed at the same time that the dinosaurs were about to be wiped out” on Earth, tens of millions of years ago, he said. “The big conclusion is that ring systems are temporary features,” said James O’Donoghue, a postdoctoral fellow at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author of the study. In recent years, the Cassini mission confirmed that ring rain was indeed real, and new observations from the Keck telescope in Hawaii are starting to tell us just how much rain there is. dinosaurs were about to be wiped out” on Earth, Scientists discover 'Farout,' the most distant solar system object ever seen, Weird hexagon on Saturn is way bigger than scientists thought, Now we know what will happen when the sun dies. Instead, they were fastened onto Saturn within the last few hundred million years — during the time of the dinosaurs. Dr James O’Donoghue, of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland, and his colleagues have used instruments attached to the Keck telescope in Hawaii to discover the phenomenon. But nothing lasts forever, and Saturn’s rings are no exception. The rings could disappear in 100 million to 300 million years. latest news, feel-good stories, analysis and more. “We estimate…the entire ring system will be gone in 300 million years,” says Dr O’Donoghue. Our website uses Cookies. / CBS News. Saturn’s rings are one of the solar system’s most recognizable features, but a new study shows that the planet is losing its famous accessories — and faster than anyone realized. Bill says: March 19, 2008 at 4:00 AM . The spacecraft took a census of the particles it encountered that were falling towards the planet; the amount of ring rain Cassini caught is “completely consistent” with Mr O’Donoghue’s measurements, Ms Spilker said. After measuring the amount of H3+ in Saturn’s upper atmosphere, Mr O’Donoghue and his team concluded as much as 4,400 pounds of water are falling onto Saturn each second. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. According to astronomers, the chunks of ice spinning around the gas planet are being pulled in by gravity under the influence of its magnetic field. What is ballot harvesting — and should you hand your ballot to a stranger? It is difficult to imagine a solar system without Saturn’s rings, but it turns out they are an ephemeral, if majestic, phenomenon. In just a … Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk. Over time, that ice tends to fall into the planet. Ring rain has been studied since the 1980s, but it wasn’t until 2013 that scientists captured direct evidence for it using spectral data from Saturn’s ionosphere. Last year, a flyby of NASA’s Cassini probe also hinted that Saturn’s rings may be young. “It’s not out of the question, I would say, that the rings might degrade on this kind of time scale,” said Jeff Cuzzi of NASA’s Ames Research Centre in Moffett Field, California, who was not involved in the research. As Saturn moves closer to the sun in its elliptical orbit, he said, it’s possible that ring rain may ramp up. Instead, they’re made of dust, gas, ice, and small rocks. “We used to think the ring system was fixed and would always look the same,” said Henry Throop, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Washington, D.C., who was not involved with the study.

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