saturn the sixth planet in our solar system is the most remarkable
best viewed through a telescope the yellow and gold gossamer rings encircling the planet are
not only its most outstanding feature but also the one that make it instantly recognizable
Galileo Galilei was the first to observe saturn's rings in 1610. forty-five years later using a more
powerful telescope dutch astronomer Christian Higgins claimed that saturn had a thin flat ring
advances in science in the years following taught us that saturn actually has many rings
these were made of billions of particles of ice and rock ranging in size from a grain of salt to
the size of a building the particles are believed to be debris left over from comets asteroids and
exploded moons a recent study also suggested the rings may be the dwarf planet carcasses
so from where did saturn get these rings formerly scientists claimed that the rings may have come
with the planet itself when the solar system itself was being formed four billion years ago
this was a natural assumption because it was believed that there must have been a lot of
dust and particles that helped create this ring before everything eventually settled down but the
two missions sent by nasa concluded that the rings were much younger only about 10 to 100
million years this information was first sent by nasa's voyager spacecraft when it crossed
the planet at extremely close quarters in the 1980s later in 2017 nasa spacecraft cassini
was sent to specifically unearth information about saturn and its rings and surprisingly it supported
the voyager's findings that means when dinosaurs were roaming the earth four billion years ago
saturn was sans its rings as much as we would like to regale the beautiful rings of saturn nasa
scientists have recently come up with a doomsday prediction concerning their survival there are
chances that the rings will disappear soon in some time saturn will no longer have its beautiful
gossamer circle sadly the rings are depleting even as you watch this video today this loss
is attributed to what has been termed as the ring phenomenon having said this though the destruction
of saturn's rings is not a new development unbeknownst to us this particle by particle
destruction has been going on for millions of years as we saw earlier the rings which are made
of ice particles rocks and dust are captured by the planet's gravitational pull forming an orbital
path around it but each time a meteorite crashes into the ring it disturbs the balance of the
particles and adds an electric charge to them the same occurs during a geomagnetic storm generated
by the sun saturn's electromagnetic field pulls the charged particles from the ring towards it
where they vaporize into the planet's cloudy atmosphere and just like that bit by bit the rings
disappear this is called the ring rain and is what is likely going to be the death of saturn's rings
nasa's prediction that with time saturn will lose its rings in entirety has been supported by space
agencies from across the globe like the european space agency ESA and japan space agency jaxa
while this prediction is likely to come true it is thankfully not going to be in our lifetime
scientists believe that it will take at least 300 million years for saturn to lose all its rings
however it will lose its corings in 100 million years what do you guys think the words twinkle
twinkle little star may put a baby to sleep but they aren't precisely accurate outside
of earth's atmosphere a correct version would be emit emit giant balls of gas not so catchy right
stars the dazzling beacons of light that come alive when the sky darkens
have always piqued our interest they've been worshipped as gods used to measure the passage
of time and as a means of navigating the planet but do we possess enough knowledge about them we
have been able to observe and study millions of stars thanks to our advanced telescopes
they have enlightened us about the universe's deepest secrets nasa's hubble space telescope has
obtained photographs of the most distant star ever observed which appears to provide a fascinating
viewing to the primordial cosmos it has set a new benchmark by detecting this distant star
this star is believed to have existed within the first billion years after the big bang astronomers
have named it arendelle an old english name which means morning star arendelle's light has travelled
an estimated 12.9 billion years to reach earth a considerable leap over the previous most distant
star which was nine billion years old because of an unusual cosmic alignment the observations were
feasible and arendelle may be the only solitary star from this time that we will ever observe
studying arundel will provide a window into a hitherto unknown era of the universe
this is a groundbreaking discovery that opens up a whole new field of research by allowing
huge stars to be directly observed when the cosmos was young and star formation was just beginning it
is thought to be at least 50 times the mass of the sun and millions of times as bright
making it one of the most massive stars ever discovered a dazzling star like this would
typically be undetectable even the whole galaxy is simply a speck of light at such great distances
astronomers will be able to quantify the star's brightness and temperature as well as gain
insight into the makeup of the first generation of stars according to the scheduled observations
these stars evolved before the universe was filled with the heavy elements created by
successive generations of big stars and they are the forerunners of the stars we see now in the sky
the james webb space telescope jwst which launched in december 2021 and is now
preparing for science operations should be able to determine whether arendelle is a single star
system or a cluster of star systems its optics are superior to hubble's and far more advanced
both these magnificent telescopes are expected to work together and bombard us with loads of new
information about the cosmos examining erindale will provide a glimpse into a time in the cosmos
that we are unfamiliar with it's like we've been reading a fascinating novel but we've started
from the second chapter and now we'll get to see how it all began what do you guys think