Saturn will lose its rings. Long before that, they will turn invisible to us

Saturn is set to lose its characteristic rings but that will take a long time as far as humans are concerned. But in 2023, those very rings could become invisible to us.

By: Science Desk
Kochi | Updated: November 7, 2023 05:38 PM IST

3 min read

Artist's impression of how Saturn's rings will look millions of years from now. The innermost rings will disappear first followed by the outer rings. (NASA/Cassini/James O'Donoghue)

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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 2018 confirmed that Saturn is losing its rings at a rapid pace. The planet’s gravity is pulling in enough ice from the rings to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool in half an hour. Even though it will take a long time for the rings to disappear completely, they are soon going to be invisible to us here on Earth.

An optical illusion

Galileo was the first person to observe Saturn’s beautiful rings in 1610 when he turned his 20x telescope towards the planet named after the Roman god of agriculture. Right now, anyone with basic astronomy gear can turn their equipment towards the planet to catch a glimpse of the rings that are made of billions of small chunks of ice and rock.

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But as early as 2025, Saturn will align edge-on with our planet, according to Earth.com. This will mean that the rings will be invisible as far as viewers from the Earth are concerned. Imagine a sheet of paper held parallel to the ground. Now imagine that sheet of paper being hundreds of metres away at eye level. How difficult would it be to spot the piece of paper? It will be a lot more difficult to spot Saturn in 2025.

Not invisible for long

But don’t worry, that phenomenon is not gonna last for long, especially in cosmic terms. Saturn takes about 29.4 Earth years to orbit around the Sun. And during that time, it will slowly tilt to showcase the other side of its rings until it eventually reaches peak visibility in 2023. This tilt will also help us view the moons of the planet better.

When will the rings actually disappear?

With the amount of ring material falling into the planet due to gravity, NASA scientists estimate that the rings have less than 100 million years to live. That may sound like a long time till you remember that Saturn is nearly 4 billion years old. Scientific consensus says that the rings are unlikely to be older than 100 million years in the first place. This means that they are nothing more than a fleeting phenomenon around a giant in our solar system.

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