Determine the true age of Saturn's belt

Based on data from the Cassini spacecraft, experts identified the Saturn belt formed about 4.4 billion years ago, shortly after the planet pictured.

Identified the age of Saturn's belt - (Photo: NASA)

The origin of Saturn's belt has long been a controversial hot issue among astronomers, with some arguing that this structure has been around for a long time, while the other group thinks it is only near here.

The new study, based on data collected by the Cassini cruise ship, supports the hypothesis that Saturn's belt has a life not less than that of the planet.

Cassini's measurements show that 'Saturn's belt may be in the form of' giant 'rather than a structure of only a few hundred million years' , according to Space.com quoted Sascha Kempf of the University of Colorado (USA). .

The main belt of Saturn has a huge size but is quite thin, with a width of about 280,000 km but only about 10m thick.

Its main structure is ice, mixing a small part of stone material after asteroids bombardment.

After the statistics, the American team calculated that the upper belt was present about 4.4 billion years.