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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."
Think of it like your skin: it is replaced over the course of a month, so you skin is never more than a month old. But you as a whole are quite a bit lder than one month. (either that or you a a genius child).
Pro-tip! Making a terrible horrible web page filled with pages upon pages of illogical rants is a sure sign you are a nut case. Furthermore it guaranties that no one will ever believe you.
Maybe it's just me, but I thought the summary explained why they think that.
Maybe it's just me, but I thought the summary included false logic. The summary made no mention why a younger surface excluded the possibility that the rings were exactly the same age scientists previously thought they were. It only opens the door to the possibility of older rings.
No, just cashing in on the joke. I've actually been following Cassini from the get-go, and I'm fascinated by what's turned up.
A century or two ago, my school sent me to the last AAAS meeting in Toronto and I got to see the live data feed from the JPL when Voyager sent back those "braided" ring pictures. Right in the room, almost as fast as they arrived, two or three scientists figured out that a pair of shepherding moons might be responsible for the braiding. They were right, as it turned out.
There was more amazing science on display at that conference than I've ever seen in my life.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
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.
Saturn's rings smell like licorice, according to the probe. This comes as a shock, since the scientific consensus has been that they'd smell almost precisely like a wet dog.
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.
(click the link for more great examples of Kevin Hovind's logic and reasoning)
just a screen shot of Saturn's rings i posted in a diff. forum
http://img181.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc37&image=55459_satring_122_37lo.jpg
the image is 1024x718
"I don't pitch OpenSUSE Linux to my friends, i let Microsoft do it for me
Find out for yourself. The rings are a recorded analog message, and Iapetus is the stylus. All we need to do is fabricate the mounting bracket, install the 'needle', and hook up an amp...
There are many things in the solar system that are younger than 4.55 Gyr; a lot of asteroids, for example, are the results of more recent breakups. You have impact craters and other geologic features on practically all bodies. Honestly, assuming that anything you look at is primordial is a pretty daft assumption unless you can make *some* argument as to why it should be.
As for Saturn's rings, a modicum of research would tell you that there are both dynamical reasons to think that rings are younger (models say that they should grind down to dust relatively fast) as well as observational evidence: the amount of meteoric dust that they've accumulated is smaller than should be there if they were as old as the planet itself. In fact, had you read the article, you would have learned that.
I swear to it by everything I hold sacred: Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle were at that conference and I got to hang out with them a fair bit.
I am not surprised. Authors often write their own personal experiences into their works including events they have attended.
Pournelle directed me to a session I otherwise would have missed where several scientists presented papers that exposed Reagan's Star Wars initiative for the multi-billion dollar cash grab it was.
I am not old enough to have made my own determination at the time about the technical and strategic feasibility of SDI. However, even if it had been an unarguably sensible thing to spend significant resources on, the political process as practiced in the US then and now would have made it a cash grab in much the same way that all large military or scientific projects that I am aware of become cash grabs.
I rather doubt the solar wind plays much role in "cleaning" up any dust here.
The mechanisms suggested here don't appear to be so much like a massive fan or a Cosmic Roomba but rather as a VERY LARGE agitator.
The research isn't necessarily suggesting the rings are ancient. It's saying our reasons for thinking the rings are young aren't as sound anymore. Basically, up until recently for a variety of reasons we thought the rings were young because our understanding led us to the belief that these rings ought to collapse rather soon (either into Saturn or its moons).
But now we're thinking there are forces which clump and forces which stir up. These work together more or less to recycle the material of the rings themselves. This leads researchers to believe the rings aren't necessarily going to collapse any time soon and indeed may be far older than we originally thought.
If "birth" of an apple is when it falls from a tree and you see one dropping (but you didn't see it fall and you have no idea where the branch is), you conclude it's "young". You know it's going to hit the ground soon and you know no matter where the branch is, it's not that far up and the apple only goes down. However, if all of a sudden you see a geyser blow and shoot that apple back up again.. and again... and again... you start to realize you really don't have any idea when it first fell off the tree.