The 4.5-billion-year-old planet appears to have acquired its iconic ornamentation ... reported silicate grains falling from the rings into Saturn’s atmosphere (SN: 10/4/18).

Saturn's innermost rings are steadily disappearing as they're being sucked up into the planet's upper atmosphere — and ... succumbing to its intense gravity. But there's a lot we still don ...

atmosphere and rings. Because Saturn’s rings are mostly made up of ice chunks—and a small percentage of tiny rock particles—they darken with time as cosmic dust accumulates on them.

Saturn’s rings are slowly disappearing. The rings will vanish in a few hundred million years as icy material from them rains ...

Some of the world's most powerful observatories are poised to study the "ring rain" phenomenon. Saturn's ... every second and heating its upper atmosphere. At this rate, the rings might vanish ...

This means we are just lucky to be living in an age when the giant planet has its magnificent rings ... pool of mass from the rings is lost into Saturn's atmosphere every half-hour.

Cassini performed 22 dives between Saturn and its rings, enabling scientists to determine the mass of both before the spacecraft plunged to its fiery death in the gas giant's atmosphere.

This means we are just lucky to be living in an age when the giant planet has its magnificent rings ... pool of mass from the rings is lost into Saturn’s atmosphere every half-hour.

he and his colleagues set out to put a date on Saturn's rings by studying how rapidly this layer of dust builds up -- a bit like telling how old a house is by running your finger along its surfaces.

Saturn's innermost rings are steadily disappearing as they're being sucked up into the planet's upper atmosphere — and ... succumbing to its intense gravity. But there's a lot we still don ...

“If we can discover what happened in that system a few hundred million years ago to form the rings, we may just end up discovering why Saturn’s moon Enceladus is spewing out from its deep ...

Saturn's innermost rings are steadily disappearing as they're being sucked up into the planet's upper atmosphere — and ... succumbing to its intense gravity. But there's a lot we still don ...