The Mystery of Saturn's Ring's Particles is Finally Solved

First Posted: Aug 05, 2015 03:15 PM EDT

The mystery behind Saturn's rings has finally been solved. Scientists have found that planetary rings, such as the ones orbiting Saturn, have a universally similar particle distribution.

"Saturn's rings are relatively well studied and it is known that they consist of ice particles ranging in size from centimeters to about ten meters," said Nikolai Brilliantov, one of the researchers, in a news release. "With a high probability these particles are remains of some catastrophic event in a far past, and it is not surprising that there exists debris of all sizes, varying from very small to very large ones."

Most of the planets in the solar system have smaller bodies, or satellites, that orbit a planet. Some of them, such as Saturn, also possess planetary rings, which is a collection of still smaller bodies of different sizes that also orbit a planet.

The researchers developed a general mathematical model to focus on Saturn's rings in this latest study. This model, though, could potentially be applied to other systems where particles merge.

"What is surprising is that the relative abundance of particles of different sizes follows, with a high accuracy, a beautiful mathematical law 'of inverse cubes,'" said Brilliantov. "That is, the abundance of 2 meter-size particles is 8 times smaller than the abundance of one meter-size particles, the abundance of 3 meter-size particles is 27 times smaller and so on. This holds true up to the size of about 10 meters, then follows an abrupt drop in the abundance of particles. The reason for this drastic drop, as well as the nature of the amazing inverse cubes law, has remained a riddle until now."

The researchers found that particle size distribution is not peculiar for Saturn's rings. Instead, it has a universal character. In other words, it is generic for all planetary rings which have particles to have a similar nature.

The findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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TagsSaturn, Dust Ring, Planet