Saturn Rings have been Around for about 4 Billion Years

By Affirunisa Kankudti | Mar 28, 2013 04:48 AM EDT

(Photo : NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute ) Saturn is present on the left this image but is too dark to see. Rhea (1,528 kilometers, or 949 miles across) is closest to Cassini here and appears largest at the center of the image. Enceladus (504 kilometers, or 313 miles across) is to the right of Rhea. Dione (1,123 kilometers, or 698 miles across) is to the left of Rhea, partly obscured by Saturn.

This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ringplane.



The rings around Saturn are bodies that have been around for more than 4 billion years, from a time when the solar system was in its infancy, according to NASA. The recent coloring on the rings' surface is due to recent "pollution" from a rain of meteoroids from beyond the solar system.

The data, obtained by the Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIMS), has now shown how rings made of water and ice are spread across the Saturnian system. The analysis of spectrometer revealed that the color on the rings is limited to the surface.

Researchers hypothesize that the water ice levels around Saturn is too great to be deposited by passing comets. Instead, they suggest that the rings might have formed when the solar system bodies were being formed out of the protoplanetary nebula. Since Saturn resides beyond the Sun's 'snow line', the temperature is cold enough to preserve the ice.

Gianrico Filacchione, a Cassini participating scientist at Italy's National Institute for Astrophysics, Rome, has published a paper on the subject in the Astrophysical Journal.

http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/1062/20130328/saturn-rings-around-4-billion-years-nasa.htm