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Cassini hints at young age for Saturn's rings
This includes making a detailed map of the gravity field in which the contributions from the huge world and the rings can be teased apart.
...
The more massive they are, the older they are likely to be. Some scientists think they could even have formed with Saturn itself 4.6 billion years ago. They would certainly need a large mass to withstand the forces that might erode them over time, such as collisions from tiny meteoroids. But it is looking like the opposite may actually be true - that their mass is less than previously estimated.
...
"For younger rings, it would require a comet, or a centaur (one of a group of small, icy objects), or perhaps even a moon moving too close to Saturn. Saturn's gravity would break apart that object and then the remaining bits would go on to form rings," explained Linda Spilker, Nasa's Cassini project scientist.
...
"So, we're heading in the direction of the rings being perhaps 100 million years old or so, which is quite young compared to the age of the Solar System," she told BBC News.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-41091333
...
The more massive they are, the older they are likely to be. Some scientists think they could even have formed with Saturn itself 4.6 billion years ago. They would certainly need a large mass to withstand the forces that might erode them over time, such as collisions from tiny meteoroids. But it is looking like the opposite may actually be true - that their mass is less than previously estimated.
...
"For younger rings, it would require a comet, or a centaur (one of a group of small, icy objects), or perhaps even a moon moving too close to Saturn. Saturn's gravity would break apart that object and then the remaining bits would go on to form rings," explained Linda Spilker, Nasa's Cassini project scientist.
...
"So, we're heading in the direction of the rings being perhaps 100 million years old or so, which is quite young compared to the age of the Solar System," she told BBC News.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-41091333
