Saturn's Rings are Much Younger Than the Planet - by BrianKoberlein
The rings of Saturn are an amazing sight. They are so iconic that it is hard to imagine Saturn without its rings. But throughout most of Saturn’s history, it didn’t have rings. The rings are much younger than the planet itself, and we now have good evidence to prove it.
The estimated age of Saturn’s rings has varied over time. In the early days of its discovery, the rings were thought to be as old as the planet itself. But back then things were generally thought to be fairly timeless. The universe was thought to be static and the idea of planetary or lunar orbits drifting over time seemed far-fetched. Even the idea of Earth’s tectonic drift wasn’t accepted until the mid-1900s. The rings were just a part of the solar system, just like everything else.
But as we came to understand the complexities of orbital dynamics, we learned that many seemingly stable systems can be unstable. Resonances between planets cause them to shift over time, particularly in the early period of the solar system. So surely a complex ring system such as Saturn’s would experience complex perturbations. Between collisions and orbital drifts, Saturn’s rings couldn’t be more than a few million years old.
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