A recent cometary origin for Saturn's rings?

Details A recent cometary origin for Saturn's rings? A recent cometary origin for Saturn's rings?

Aug 1991

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1991icar...92..194d&link_type=abstract

Icarus (ISSN 0019-1035), vol. 92, Aug. 1991, p. 194-203. Research supported by NSERC.

Physics

41

Comets, Micrometeoroids, Planetary Evolution, Saturn Rings, Solar System Evolution, Asteroids, Cassini Mission, Chiron, Hubble Space Telescope, Space Debris

Scientific paper

An origin for Saturn's rings in tidal disruption by a comet of the scale of Chiron, which passed within Saturn's Roche radius, is presently explored. While subsequent collisions among the fragments lead to a flat equatorial ring, collisions with inner satellites could generate a Population II-like set of craters on its moons. About one ring-capture event would occur in the age of the solar system, in keeping with the expected disruption frequency of the parent satellites by cometary bombardment. These factors imply either an origin of the rings in a recent and unlikely tidal or collisional event, or an actually primordial origin. Searches of outer solar system planetesimals should help determine the rings' origins and age.

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