Scientists predict that the giant ring that surrounds the planet Saturn will break and disappear completely in the next few hundred million years. The process of destruction has been revealed by astronomers to The Atlantic magazine. The ring is said to be in a state of 'disruption', being pulled towards Saturn by gravity and eventually going to vaporize. An estimated 10 tons of 'ring material' fell on Saturn. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has studied Saturn's rings extensively through the Cassini spacecraft mission. Through the current rate of decline, the entire ring system is expected to disappear about 300 million years from now. But NASA informs that there will likely be less than 100 years to 'live'.
Meanwhile, the disappearance of Saturn's rings, scientists suspect this ring rain since the first photos from Voyager in 1980 hinted at this process. Then, in recent years, the Cassini mission confirmed that this ring rain actually occurred. And, a recent NASA study using the Keck telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii even shows how severe the ring rain is. As it turned out, this ring rain was so severe that Saturn's rings began to disappear faster than we thought.
"The ring's rain reached 4,000 pounds or 1,814 kilograms per second. If Saturn's ice were water, it would be enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool in just half an hour," said study lead author James O'Donoghue of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
According to James, with such a large ring rain rate, Saturn's rings will disappear forever within 300 million years.
"This is relatively short, compared to Saturn's age of more than four billion years," James added.
Recent research has also shown that Saturn had rings less than 100 million years ago.
"We are fortunate to still be able to see Saturn's ring system, which appears to be in the middle of its lifetime," said James
The ring is also said to be in the early stages of its life, and is estimated to be between 10 million and 100 million years old.
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