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.

The rings are fairly shiny despite being bombarded by dust, indicating that they haven’t been around for very long.

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.

Saturn's ring's are a young age of only 400million years old — just a fraction of the 5billion years the planet has existed for. An international team of physicists has the most compelling ...

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.

Discovered in 1610 by Galileo, Saturn's rings have been viewed for hundreds of years by astronomers. These rings, composed ...

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.

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.

Saturn’s rings ... s atmosphere at night as shooting stars. The gravitational fields of the planets have the effect of magnifying or focusing this dusty, planetary “in-fall”. Over time, this in-fall ...