Saturn's Rings Could be Disappearing

fenimor writes "Saturn, the sixth planet from the Sun, is probably best known for its famous planetary rings. They extend from 6,630 km to 120,700 km above Saturn's equator, and are composed of silica rock, iron oxide, and ice particles. A massive eruption of atomic oxygen from Saturn's outer rings, seen by Cassini's ultraviolet camera, may be an indication that the planet's wispy E ring is eroding so fast that it could disappear within 100 million years if not replenished."

Okay...

[CheshireCatCO]

First of all, 100 million years is a pretty long time, even by planet standards. Second, the E-ring is easily one of the most tenuous of the rings. (You've never seen it through a telescope, for example.) The A, B, and C rings, the ones you've seen, are a lot denser. It's not clear if they're disappearing, and if so, how long they'd last. In fact, if you get past the sensational leader paragraph, you discover that it is far from clear that the oxygen even came from the E-ring.

Actually, whoever wrote that article didn't really check the facts all that well. A quick check would have shown that the E-ring only starts at 180,000 km from the planet's center (that's 120,000 km from the "surface"). It extends out another 300,000 km, so this isn't a totally trivial point. Also, the UVIS instrument, fantastic though it is, hasn't discovered all of the things that they claim it did. Most of those observations were made in the visible wavelengths. And were discovered by, er, Voyager. I mean, I hate to be nitpicky on the one hand, but is it so much to ask for people to try to keep the facts straight?

Re:Enough with the editorialising...

[CheshireCatCO]

I strongly doubt that any process that replenishes the rings would be applicable to replenishing the ozone layer. For one thing, the ozone layer is chemistry in action, the rings are much more simple physics. (Blasting particles off of a moon has little to do with producing O3 molecules on Earth.)

More important, you need to point out to me where the blurb suggests that humans should replenish the rings. "Replenish" doesn't really imply that humans need to be involved. Any attempt to read that statement as saying that the means need to be artificial says more about your than about how you read things than the person who wrote it.