Not contemporaries of dinosaurs: scientists revealed when Saturn's rings first appeared.

There has long been a debate among scientists about the age of the rings of Saturn. Most theories suggested that they are between 100 and 300 million years old, implying that they formed around the time of the dinosaurs. However, a new study is set to challenge these conclusions.

In their latest research, scientists propose that the rings could be as old as Saturn itself. The study was published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Previous theories regarding the formation of the rings stated that Saturn gravitationally tore apart a comet or icy moon approximately 100 million years ago. A key argument supporting this theory was that cosmic dust and micrometeorite material would gradually accumulate on ice fragments, darkening them over long periods. However, this has not occurred, and the rings still maintain their clarity and brightness.

Nonetheless, researchers from the University of Tokyo have challenged these findings, suggesting that the rings could be around 4 to 4.5 billion years old, making them slightly younger than the Solar System itself.

They modeled the behavior of micrometeorites colliding with Saturn's rings and discovered that upon impact, temperatures could reach around 10,000 degrees Celsius. At this point, the micrometeorites would simply vaporize, creating a cloud of ions and nanoparticles.

Through numerous simulations, the study's authors demonstrated that micrometeorite material does not settle on the ice particles; instead, it is either carried away into the planet's atmosphere or ejected back into outer space.

Thus, the new research suggests that the rings of Saturn maintain their purity not because they are young, but due to their tendency for self-cleaning.

This could also explain why the rings of different planets have varying chemical compositions—they may have originally been formed from different "building materials" and remain uncontaminated by the same type of cosmic dust.

As previously reported, scientists recently observed a mysterious spot on one of Saturn's moons. They are still trying to understand what it was and, most importantly, where it has gone.