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New NASA research indicates that
Saturn’s iconic rings are not

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only younger than previously
thought, but also that these

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rings are actually disappearing
at an extremely fast pace. The

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research found that the rings
are draining away toward the

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planet as a dusty rain of ice
particles. Saturn’s rings

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consist mostly of water ice that
ranges in size from microscopic

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dust to large boulders.
Ultraviolet light from the Sun

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and plasma clouds coming from
tiny meteoroid strikes charge

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the icy dust, which then becomes
bound to Saturn’s magnetic field

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and pulled into the planet by
gravity. This material rains

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into the planet and begins to
disintegrate, allowing it to

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react chemically with the
electrically charged part of

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Saturn’s upper atmosphere - the
ionosphere. The ions glow in an

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infrared light as a part of this
process if the rain is light,

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but the emissions dim if the
rain is heavy. This was observed

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using instruments attached to
the Keck telescope in Hawaii.

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The rate of disappearance in
this ring rain study has allowed

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scientists to infer that
Saturn’s rings formed less than

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100 million years ago. This
means Saturn wasn’t born this

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way, as the planet is known to
be over 4 billion years old. And

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when the ring rain data is
combined with observations made

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by the Voyager 1 and 2 missions,
scientists from NASA Goddard are

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able to estimate that the rings
will be gone in 300 million

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years. So, if this rain doesn’t
go away, Saturn will be

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ring-less another day.