Saturn is losing its iconic rings at the maximum estimated rate from Voyager 1 and 2 observations.
The bad news? According to NASA researchers the rings are being pulled into the planet by its gravity.
The good news? It would take approximately 300 million years for every single chunk of water ice circling the planet to disintegrate into the 4 billion year old planet.
That's right, the rings of Saturn are essentially chunks of water ice and they range from the tiniest dust grains to some the size of huge boulders.
All of them are circling Saturn thanks to the planet’s powerful gravitational pull. Gradually, thousands are being pulled into the planet. As ultraviolet light from the sun charges these particles, Saturn's magnetic field begins pulling at them.
And they're called "ring rain" because millions of these particles fall at the same time into the planet like... well, rain.
"We estimate that this 'ring rain' drains an amount of water products that could fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool from Saturn's rings in half an hour," NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center’s James O'Donoghue says.
James, who is the lead author of the study on Saturn’s rings, believes that the rings were acquired by the planet later on in its life.
"We are lucky to be around to see Saturn's ring system, which appears to be in the middle of its lifetime," James says.
While we've missed out on seeing giant ring systems of Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, which have only thin ringlets today, we can consider ourselves lucky to be witnessing this event.
