If you want to recognise Saturn from our solar system then it is easily recognisable through the presence of ring around the planet. These are the biggest and the brightest ring existing in our solar system and extends around 280,000 kilometres from the planet and wide enough to fit six earth in a row.
But Saturn would not be having this look as it is losing it’s ring faster than anticipated. Currently it is raining ten thousand kilograms of ring rain on the planet per second.
The ring is mostly made of chunks of ice and rocks which are under constant bombardment. The reason is due to the UV radiation of the Sun and some by tiny meteoroids. When these crashes take place icy particles vaporise forming water molecule that integrate with Saturn magnetic field. The result is the rain and ultimately burning up in Saturn’s atmosphere.
This was first noticed in the 1980’s when dark bands were noticed and recognised as ring rains. Back then it was calculated that the ring would disappear in about 300 million years. But observation by NASA Cassini space-craft gave more deeper and darker observations before its destruction into Saturn. It observed that ring rain on Saturn’s equator was much heavier than earlier.
Scientist calculated that now the ring only has a 100 million years to live and would become naked as Earth. Saturn had formed about 4.5 billion years ago, the ring is only 100-200 million years old at top as suggested by the studies.
We are lucky that we have seen the ring on Saturn and studies have also helped us to discover the Moon of Saturn that is considered that most white and most reflective moon existing. The Moon is made of ice and gas.
Source: Tech Insider and Business Insider
