Saturn's Rings Are Ancient

gardenermike writes "Analysis of data from the Cassini probe suggests that Saturn's rings may be billions of years old, rather than the previously surmised millions. Previous research suggested that the rings were young, because of the lack of dark dust accumulation on their surfaces. However, the latest data suggests that the ring surfaces are even younger than previously thought, meaning, ironically, that the rings themselves are much older: they are not static enough to collect dust, but rather are continuously recycling material, with clumps continuously forming and disintegrating."

Comments

This isn't really conclusive...

[Fyz]

Just because there is evidence that rings could be ancient, doesn't mean that they are. They could still go through this recycling process and still be formed by cometary impacts at a time later than the planetary formation phase.

Shouldn't this have been the default assumption?

[iamacat]

Overwhelming majority of features in the solar system are at least a billion years old. Anything younger should have obvious signs of recent formation. For the Rings of Saturn, we would expect to see some rocks still settling into circular orbit, remainder of the disintegrating satellite or at least markedly non-uniform size of composing rocks. So how did the scientists come up with this unlikely hypothesis of the rings having just formed by astronomical time scale in the first place? Even (primitive) life on Earth probably existing for millions of years.