Circles around Saturn are billions of years ago

According to astronomers, the new data collected by Cassini probes shows that circles around Saturn have been around billions of years ago and may be permanent.

Circles around Saturn may have formed billions of years ago (Photo: NASA)

Previously, researchers believed that these circles were only 100 million years ago, when a moon or a giant comet was destroyed in the vicinity of Saturn.

According to Professor Larry Esposito of the University of Colorado, Cassini's discovery has completely changed this hypothesis. " These circles can last as long as the Solar System and probably have been around for several billion years ," he said.

So far no one has been able to answer the question of when Saturn's circles formed, but most scientists think they are the result of a long-term collision in the past. .

The Cassini probe, funded by the US Aerospace Agency (NASA), the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency, was launched in 1997 and arrived in Saturn in 2004.

T.VY