The breathtakingly created by research on Saturn shows that a structure acts like the protoplanet disk of the first solar system.
The study is led by Dr. James O’Donoghue, a planetary scientist from JAXA (Japanese Space Agency), famous former scientist from NASA.
According to Bussiness Insider, images recently released by Dr O’Donoghue show seven giant rings circling Saturn’s equator with rhythmic motion. “In a way, this perimeter system is like a mini solar system. Objects near Saturn’s orbit will spin faster or they will fall inward, whereas distant shutters might. This is similar to planets in other star systems, ”said Dr. O’Donoghue.
Science Alert reports that the study also shows that the giant rings of Saturn spin at an average speed of almost 70 times the speed of sound, but each ring has its own speed, just like the eight planets in the solar system spin at 8 speeds. independent. . Saturn’s slowest ring is the outermost ring, which spins at 16.4 km / s, slower than Saturn’s rotational speed. Meanwhile, the inner ring can reach speeds of up to 23.2 km / s.
However, Saturn’s rings are extremely fragile. The total mass of the 7 rings is only 1/5000 of the mass of our moon. Scientists suspect that the system may have come from debris from old moons or from comets that have come too close and shattered. It is estimated that these belts appeared only 100 million years ago, at the same time as the golden age of dinosaurs on Earth.
When they studied Saturn’s upper atmosphere, they also found that the rings are slowly swallowed up by the planet itself, with thousands of kilograms of belt material falling onto the planet every second. Therefore, this mini “solar system” type belt system is unlikely to last more than 300 million years.
