- Scientists used supercomputer simulations to understand the origin of the rings.
- A collision between two icy moons could have caused their formation
Since they were first seen through a telescope, Saturn’s rings have baffled astronomers.
But a team of researchers now believe they have discovered the origins of the mystical loops.
A new series of supercomputer simulations suggests that a massive collision between two icy moons a few hundred million years ago could have led to their formation.
And it could help explain why the rings appear so much “younger” than the planet itself.
The most recent high-quality measurements of Saturn come from the Cassini spacecraft, which spent 13 years studying the planet and its systems after entering Saturn’s orbit in 2004.
Since they were first seen through a telescope, Saturn’s rings have baffled astronomers. But a team of researchers now believe they have discovered the origins of the mystical loops.
A new series of supercomputer simulations suggests that a massive collision between two icy moons a few hundred million years ago could have led to their formation.
The spacecraft captured precise data as it passed and even plunged into the space between Saturn’s rings and the planet itself.
Cassini found that the rings are almost pure ice and have accumulated very little dust contamination since their formation, suggesting that they were created during the most recent period of the Solar System’s life.
Intrigued by the youth of the rings, scientists at NASA, as well as the universities of Durham and Glasgow, modeled what different collisions between precursor moons would look like.
These simulations were performed using more than 100 times the resolution of previous studies, giving scientists their best insights into the history of the Saturn system.
Dr Vincent Eke, from Durham University, said: “We tested a hypothesis about the recent formation of Saturn’s rings and have found that impacts from icy moons can send enough material close to Saturn to form the rings we see now. .
Cassini found that the rings are almost pure ice and have accumulated very little dust contamination since their formation, suggesting that they were created during the most recent period of the Solar System’s life.
“This scenario naturally leads to ice-rich rings, because when the parent moons collide with each other, the rock in the cores of the colliding bodies is dispersed less than the ice covering them.”
Saturn’s rings today live close to the planet within what is known as the Roche limit: the farthest orbit where a planet’s gravitational force is powerful enough to disintegrate larger bodies of rock or ice that come closer. .
Material orbiting further away could clump together to form moons.
By simulating nearly 200 different versions of the impact, the research team found that a wide range of collision scenarios could disperse the right amount of ice at Saturn’s Roche limit, where it could settle into rings as icy as Saturn’s today.
Since other elements of the system have a mixed composition of ice and rock, alternative explanations have failed to explain why there would be almost no rock in Saturn’s rings.
The findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal.
