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Saturn's Rings Are Disappearing At a 'Worst-Case Scenario' Rate, NASA Says (usatoday.com)
A new study published in the journal Icarus found that Saturn is losing its signature rings at a "worst-case scenario" rate, and the bands could disappear completely within 100 million years. USA Today reports: The rings are being pulled into the planet "by gravity as a dusty rain of ice particles under the influence of Saturn's magnetic field," NASA said. The phenomenon is called "ring rain," and it drains enough water from rings to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool every 30 minutes, said James O'Donoghue of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "From this alone, the entire ring system will be gone in 300 million years," O'Donoghue said in a statement. "But add to this the Cassini-spacecraft measured ring-material detected falling into Saturn's equator, and the rings have less than 100 million years to live. We are lucky to be around to see Saturn's ring system, which appears to be in the middle of its lifetime."
Here's a fun game. Go out on the street and ask 30 random people what could be causing Saturn's rings to slowly dissapear. But first take a guess what the number one answer will be.
I propose a sequel to Wall-E, where humanity realizes Saturns rings are almost gone - but saves the day by replacing missing ring-ice with plastic floating in the oceans of Earth!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Congratulations...you've jumped to an conclusion not supported by the article. Sorry to burst your bubble, but you simply are not as smart as you think you are, Chris. On the brighter side, at least your not as stupid as the the dipshit above making straw man arguments about climate change (well, maybe it's more of a toss-up still), when in fact he's only confirming that a lot of people in the US are stupid.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
We'll build bid, fat, beautiful new rings. They'll go up so fast your head will spin!
And Enceladus will pay for it!
.. I'm sure some new tax will be invented to Save the Rings of the Evil of Mankind
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
That’s all right. Now that we have a Space Force, we could probably go and make sure someone holds the rings in place so that our children 100 million years down the line can look at circular crap floating through space.
It means the Ace Rimmers across the multitudinous universes are living longer, on average - so the orbital decay of their coffins is happening more frequently than new coffins are arriving.
#DeleteChrome
The heat from the sun, which is causing warming of the Earth, is evaporating the rings of Saturn. This is very incredible. Hopefully the sun will cool down soon and everything will be back to normal.
The reverb coming out of your backside from you having your head so far up it when you speak is making it difficult to hear anything you say. Or take you seriously.
Please remove your head from your butt before commenting further.
He thinks Saturn needs to have rings on account of the fact that it is actually a giant alien record player and the beat must go on.
Now you have destroyed Saturn, too.
If we can blame Trump for everything that is going wrong, even if he had nothing to do with it, we can blame Obama as well.
Because
accretion disks DO NOT condense into discrete well-defined orbital bodies like planets (or in this case, moons)
Planetary rings are not accretion disks. So your statement is already wrong from the first two words. Even so, there is evidence that some of Saturn's moons were formed partially out of condensed ring material.
the Big Bang theory as a simple explanation of everything we see.
The Big Bang theory has little to do with ring mechanics. Maxwell already had a comprehensive model of how the rings worked (based on Newtonian physics) 70 years before Lemaitre posed the idea of a Big Bang.
will try to blame this on "climate change" as well LOLOL
Here I am having a great day, and I learn that in 100 million years, some planet I'll never have any business with, will cease having rings around it.
Oh noes!! Whatever will I do?! Life sucks now!
Nah but seriously "worst case scenario" as a headline for something profoundly unimportant is clickbait one would expect on buzzfeed, not Slashdot.
Seriously. You want to know what is truly to blame for people willfully ignoring climate change? Science journalism. When I see articles like this, that talk about an interesting observation of an astronomical phenomenon in the same way that the National Emergency Broadcasting System talks about impending thermonuclear annihilation, it makes me jaded to articles about things that actually affect me or more importantly, things that I affect. It isn't the fault nor really the responsibility of scientists to prevent their discoveries from falling in the hands of hacks, but it is BeauHD's fucking job to keep clickbait bullshit off the front page of Slashdot.
It appears that the global warming is truly global, affecting Saturn's rings.
You should grab your kids and take a trip to go and see them before theyre gone !
What does this even mean, in this context?
I mean, apart from external realities causing science to lose it characteristic dispassion?
So basically you shouldnt worry too much about what happens 100 million years ago, civilization will not last 100 thousand XD
Wow, I'm so concerned.
First, why the hell is everyone bleating about politics on an astronomy topic? On a level of ignorance that is the only astronomic thing here?
For crying out loud, if you want 4chan, go post on 4chan. Why the hell ruin the internet for everyone else? Too bloody pathetic?
Second, study the bloody rings!
I don't give an f about your whinging about tax cuts and designer genes, hike taxes to 60% or just take the money. Get space missions up there to study how the rings regenerate themselves, how they're depleted and what the relative rate means for the composition of various moons.
If they have to take all your money to do it, why should I care? You want a society where it's every person for themselves, then it's not my problem if you're the person they crush. I only care about people in societies that take care of those in them.
Why should you get a say in space tech? You don't want a say, so why give you one? You're not interested in the results, so why bother to share?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Got anything better to do than post irrelevant things about stuff beyond you?
Be like Strax.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
You're the potato one
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
accretion disks DO NOT condense into discrete well-defined orbital bodies like planets (or in this case, moons)?/quote.
Uh, this disk of material is doing a pretty good job of condensing into a planet: Saturn. Some moons gained material too, but otherwise it is doing a pretty good job of accumulating into a single large body. Given that most of the rings are within the fluid Roche limit, it is pretty well in line with current theories that moons would struggle to form but also not lose what they've already accumulated.
OH NO! How will the universe survive such a change? No Rings around the collar????
OMG!!
Just bought a telescope - hope it gets here in time for me to still see the rings!!!
THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES FOR YOUR LIES NAZI FAGGOT KEN DOLL
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
This is pretty cool.
This is a planetary feature which happens to exist within the time we are capable of seeing an knowing about them.
They'll come and go, have their own life cycle, and eventually go away.
That a bunch of monkeys on a boring rock in a corner of the galaxy floating in a vast universe can be aware of other planets in our solar system (or outside of it), know they have features like rings, send probes to look at them, and calculate that in 100 million years they'll be gone ... I find that pretty awesome, in the literal sense of the world.
We think of planets and the solar system and galaxies as these fixed, static systems which never change.
In reality, they're massively complex systems, which ebb and flow, wear out, fall apart, get made all over again. Over long scales, everything is in constant process of change.
There's no real human impact here, and the timeline is so crazy it's doubtful humans will still be around ... but that we can know this is happening around us is the kind of thing that just makes me happy to be alive to know about.
Science is cool, knowing what the universe around us doing, what it's made of, and in part how it got that way ... that's really amazing to me.
Why is it a "worst" case scenario? Why not a best case scenario? Saturn will lose those freakish rings and will soon morph into a normal round planet like everyone else. It can be proud of its body for once.
I thought the Big Bang Theory was about the blonde chick and the nerds?
That's the ticket.
The Cassini probe May have disrupted the delicate balance of the rings when it flew by. That butterfly's effect of gravity cascaded into all the rings collapsing into the planet. We should just stay home?
Take your straw man back to the gun club, people are interested in science here.
Okay, clearly someone needs to say it. But...
We need to determine how human activity is causing this catastrophe, and how we can apply tax strategies to mitigate it.
There, I said it. I propose a Ring Tax on telescopes and other magnification devices to provide funds to study the dissipation of the rings and how human activity is causing it (and we ARE the cause, that science is settled). We can funnel the money to politically well-connected "scientists" via a political nonprofit or maybe even the Clinton Foundation.
Sounds like a great plan to me. Let's get started. Forward!
Why are you schilling political crap on a science articla?
Wait... it's not that Saturn right...?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
At this ALARMING rate only 100 million years!
Right, so since we actually have no idea what is happening or why, that seems like a stretch to even think this is radical behavior.
the rings have less than 100 million years to live
With the incredible rate of advancement of technology, we'll probably blow them up long before then!
... but, frankly, when they are gone, I doubt anyone will miss them. In fact, I doubt anyone will even realize they were there in the first place. Like glaciers, or the gulf stream, or fish, ...
I feel like this significantly informs the theories of how the rings formed. If they are being lost this quickly, it would seem to disprove theories that have them being formed in the early solar system, and suggest a more recent cause.
Who flew creimer to Saturn and told him the rings are ice cream?
According to the video, UV from the sun is causing the problem. So, we just need to turn off the sun. That would fix the global warming problem too.
"It's fairly slow, though."
From the Slashdot story: "... could disappear completely within 100 million years..."
Does anyone mind if I worry about that tomorrow?
If the rings are missing, somebody should check Hillary's emails...
Who cares about what happens in 100 M years! You freaks... but we all have to eat, right? ;)
Except, President is a national election. Gerrymandering is immaterial in the Presidential count in all but Maine and Nebraska: a grand total of 5 electoral votes at stake and none of which in those all important "swing state" votes. But I wouldn't expect a TDS victim to understand simple logic or try to understand the process before spouting off some CNN talking point.
I know, because getting an ID is sooo fucking hard. And everyone knows, only Democrats are poor. Unfortunately, Democrats are apparently too retarded to figure out how to navigate the confusing, scary world of the DMV. Republicans apparently understand it from birth. And voting by mail might as well be calculating moon shot trajectories. Who could figure that shit out? And my God! Having to re-register to vote if I fail to show up to the polls for four years straight? Might as well ask me to explain quantum mechanics.
God only knows what you mean by this idiotic statement. Perhaps you are talking about Michael Moore offering to cover legal expenses if electors violated their legally bound duties and vote for Hillary? He was suborning electoral fraud, but nobody took up his offer.
You need to focus your anger on the media then. They are still imbalanced (or should I say unbalanced) in their Trump coverage. You should thank them though. Every time Hillary hit the news she was saying things to alienate half the country. Her "deplorables" comment cost her the election more than Russian interference. You TDS victims are too angry and pig headed to admit that she cost herself the election from her own contemptuous, hateful, and arrogant attitudes.
Kind of like how Hillary used the DNC to cheat her way to the nomination? The leftards like to speculate how Trump "cheated" by playing to the existing rules whereas we have proof - thanks to Wikileaks - that Hillary cheated her way to the general election.
LOL. A shitstorm brought out because Hillary misused classified email on an unsecured server and wiped 30,000 emails while under a subpoena. Somehow leftards dismiss this as no big deal and focus on Trump paying hush money to shut up 2 gold digging whores looking to cash in. Let's see... National security violations from a high level Cabinet Secretary with willful destruction of evidence vs. blackmail payoffs for an affair of a civilian running for office.
Maybe your side ought to pull your heads out of your collective asses or you'll have to live with another four years of MAGA.
Global Warming.
Or rather intergalactic warning.
We must eliminate all the farting vegan activists to cool down the earth and later Saturn.
I mean, something has changed in a grand scale. Blaming the climate change is kinda mandatory these days. Just curious.
That's funny.
It *is* an apt analogy, however.
all of the plastic in earth's oceans wouldn't replace even one *millionth* of Saturn's rings
Aha, you are talking about all the plastic now - remember this is Wall-E FanFic, set in a distant time after much plastic has had time to accumulate, and the citizens showed a propensity for leaving crap outside!
An interesting technical exercise - would all of the hydrocarbons on Earth manage to produce enough plastic to make a dent in replacing Saturn's rings?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
We're lucky to live in the 400 or 500 million year window when Saturn's rings are spectacular huh? I think we're also lucky to live in a time when we get those nice solar eclipses. Our moon used to be closer, probably blotted out too much of the sun, and someday it'll be further away, only annular eclipses.
Truly, these are the best of times. Unless of course, Wolf-Rayet 104 blasts off or Yellowstone erupts or ...
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
Seems to me the water could be harvested and used to make fuel.
For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion(operation of wandering)(planet) so that they will believe the lie.
Mystery Red of the Great American Eclipse 2017
Thanks Obama
By the way, this person's answer is also correct:
> They aren't disappearing it just appears they are due to Saturn's rings angle compared to the earth making most telescopes unable to see the rings.
In a few years, we won't be able to see the rings of Saturn because we'd be looking at them from the edge. if you want to see them, or want your kids to see them, now is the time to do so.
I'm just waiting for Ocasio Cortez to get out there and let us know this is because the Rich aren't paying their "fair share".
The rings would be 200% larger today if the richest gave just a tenth or their 2018 earnings !!
I demand the UN be sent in to overthrow the peaceful nation states of Saturn and put in place a ring protection tax so everyone can hand over their money to a one world/one solar system monopoly right now.
In 100 millions years we will most likely have destroyed earth, either killing ourselves off, or spreading like a plague throughout the galaxy. Either way, Saturn's rings wont matter.
Whenever a player quits EVE to go play WoW, the Average IQ of both games increase.
If they're melting or whatever at a geological blink of an eye, makes me curious then, how were they created? (please don't answer "God"). Can't the clock be run backwards? And, why saturn?
Inquiring minds wanna know.
Oh, no. I read that wrong. It's 100 million years. I guess I don't have to hurry up to get my space passport renewed after all.
Blame white males - especially the Christian ones - and global warming. It works for everything else. Perhaps you could even land a government grant.
Oh no a "Worst-case Scenario" is happening! How will I be able to go about my daily business now?!
I love when people use numbers that appear big, except when compared to *really* big numbers.
...it drains enough water from rings to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool every 30 minutes...
OH NO! Except...
... the entire ring system will be gone in 300 million years...
300,000,000 years * 365 days * 48 half-hours in a day = 5,256,000,000,000. So there are 5.256 TRILLION swimming pools worth of water up there. I'm not going to lay awake tonight worrying about this.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
You were saying? Did you prefer to die in a fire, kill yourself, or choke on a bag of baby dicks?
The cause/source of the rings is still unknown. Thus, how do they know they'll disappear if the source is not known? The cause/source may replenish the rings.
While a one-time collision is one possible cause, periodic ice-burping by a moon or two may also be the source.
One interesting theory is that periodically a pair of moons get too close to each other, heat each other up, melt their cores, burp water/ice, swap orbits, and then drift into normal orbits for a while again. (Sounds like my marriage.)
Table-ized A.I.
And we're unlucky to have missed Jupiter's rings, which were far more impressive.
Saturn's rings are the result of catastrophic events such as impacts and the collision of captured bodies. There will be more collisions with Saturn in the future. And thus more orbital debris (rings) will be generated.