Saturn is famed for its beautiful rings, but these rings are something of a puzzle. Now, new research suggests they could have formed from a lost moon.
Saturn is famed for its beautiful rings, but these rings are something of a puzzle to astronomers. Originally, it was thought that they must have formed around the same time as the planet, over 4 billion years ago. But data from the Cassini spacecraft suggested the rings might be much younger than that, forming less than 100 million years ago. Now, a new study suggests that the rings could have been formed from a long-lost moon, explaining several of Saturn’s peculiarities.
This can explain the planet’s tilt too. The long-held theory was that Saturn was tilted due to the gravitational forces of Neptune, but the new model suggests that while this might have been the case long ago, today Saturn is no longer in resonance with Neptune. It could have been the movements of this since-destroyed moon that caused the planets to fall out of resonance.
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