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A long-lost moon may have given Saturn its signature rings
The planet’s rings might be from an historic, lacking moon, in accordance with area scientists on the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise and the College of California, Berkeley.
However round 160 million years in the past, this moon turned unstable and swung too near Saturn in what the researchers described as a “grazing encounter” that smashed the moon aside.
Whereas the fuel large possible swallowed 99% of the moon, the rest turned suspended in orbit, breaking into small icy chunks that in the end shaped the planet’s rings, the scientists instructed.
“Quite a lot of explanations have been provided, however none is completely convincing. The cool factor is that the beforehand unexplained younger age of the rings is of course defined in our state of affairs,” stated research creator Jack Knowledge, a professor of planetary science on the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise, in a information launch.
Saturn’s uncommon tilt
The research additionally sheds mild on two different puzzling options of Saturn.
Beforehand, astronomers suspected that the planet’s 26.7-degree tilt got here from gravitational interactions with its neighbor Neptune, however in accordance with the research, the misplaced moon concept could present a greater clarification. The 2 planets could as soon as have been in sync, and the lack of a moon might have been sufficient to dislodge Saturn from Neptune’s pull and go away it with the present-day tilt.
“The lean is simply too massive to be a results of identified formation processes in a protoplanetary disk or from later, massive collisions,” Knowledge stated.
The researchers named the misplaced moon Chrysalis, due to the best way they suppose it remodeled the planet.
“Similar to a butterfly’s chrysalis, this satellite tv for pc was lengthy dormant and out of the blue turned lively, and the rings emerged,” Knowledge stated.
He added that the analysis advised “a fairly good story,” however must be examined and examined by different astronomers.