Study pegs age of Saturn's rings at 400 million years old
New Delhi, May 13 (PTI) Researchers have pegged the planet Saturn's rings' age at no more than 400 million years old, potentially answering a question that has boggled scientists for well over a century.
The study, led by physicist Sascha Kempf at the University of Colorado Boulder, US, said that it has delivered the strongest evidence yet that Saturn's rings are remarkably young, much younger than Saturn itself, which is about 4.5 billion years old.
The researchers arrived at this answer by studying tiny grains of rocky material washing through the Earth's solar system on an almost constant basis. In some cases, they said, this flux can leave behind a thin layer of dust on planetary bodies, including on the ice that makes up Saturn's rings.
