A new explanation of the causes of Saturn's rings .
The disappearing satellite Chrysalis has incarnated into the beautiful ring of Saturn (imagined image). B. Militzer
Voyager2, Saturn rings and some Saturn moons taken by Militzer. The photo was taken on August 4, 1981, when the probe was flying through the Saturn system. NASA
On April 25, 20087, the Cassini detector took a close-up shot of Saturn's rings. NASA
Saturn's ring is a unique existence in the solar system. Except for Saturn, other giant gas planets in the solar system do not have such a large and spectacular ring. This also makes people curious about its origin. Intuition alone people suspect that Saturn's rings are not innate. The detection results also prove that such suspicion is reasonable: Saturn was formed about 4.5 billion years ago, and Saturn's rings were much younger, and it was formed about 100 million to 200 million years ago.
Recent research has once again discussed this possibility. Astronomers at MIT and the University of California, Berkeley believe that Saturn's rings are about 160 million years old, and it is the wreckage formed after a Saturn's satellite shatters. And the reason why this satellite shattered is because it was influenced by the mysterious power related to Neptune .
Researchers called the shattered satellite Chrysalis (Chrysalis), a metaphor for the process of its transformation into the beautiful ring of Saturn. The size of Chrysalis should be about the same as today's Titan (Iapetus). A series of chain reactions caused it to surpass Roche's limit more than 100 million years ago because it was too close to Saturn and eventually collapsed. After the fragmentation, most of the fragments of Chrysalis were swallowed by Saturn, and 1% remained in orbit, forming the magnificent Saturn rings we see today.
Although Saturn and Neptune are far apart, they are secretly connected. There may be a so-called " resonance (resonance)" relationship between the precession of Saturn's rotation axis and the precession of Neptune's rotation axis. Both cycles are as long as 1.87 million years. This results in Saturn having a huge axis of rotation (about 27 degrees), which is only slightly smaller than Neptune's axis of rotation (about 28 degrees).
Saturn and Neptune have been following this "contract" for the past few billion years. But Saturn's largest moon, Titan (Titan), migrated toward orbit away from Saturn at that time. This process puts the Saturn system into an unstable state, which eventually leads to Saturn losing a moon, forming a ring, and withdrawing from the "resonance" with Neptune.
researchers obtained a relatively accurate value of Saturn's angular momentum based on data from the Cassini detector. Angular momentum can reflect the relationship between Saturn's mass, speed and radius. The results show that Saturn's angular momentum is only slightly smaller than the angular momentum that Saturn and Neptune should have when they are in a resonant state. The missing angular momentum can be supplemented with an additional Enceladus.
As for the reason why Titan migration, the computer simulation results showed that it might have orbital resonance with Chrysalis at a certain time period. This will cause Chrysalis' orbit to be unstable, causing it to disintegrate too close to Saturn.
According to Titan's location today, and in theory it migrates to the speed that it can achieve, researchers believe the incident occurred between 100 million and 200 million years ago. This also conforms to people's previous estimates of the age of Saturn's rings.
The rotation axis inclination angle of each large planet in the solar system. Richard Barkus
Cassini probe took photos of Saturn (yellow background), Saturn's rings (stripes) and Titan (larger golden sphere), and Tenkel (smaller gray sphere). NASA
Reference
Chrysalis, the lost moon that gave Sourn its rings
https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/09/15/chrysalis-the-lost-moon-that-gave-saturn-its-rings/
