Planet Saturn is losing its rings, finds study

New Delhi : A new research by NASA has found that planet Saturn is losing its rings at a "worst-case-scenario" rate.

The gas giant's iconic rings are apparently being pulled by the planet by gravity as a dusty rain of ice particles under the influence of the planet's magnetic field.

"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," said James O'Donoghue of NASA.

"From this alone, the entire ring system will be gone in 300 million years," Mr O'Donoghue added, but noted that actually the situation was far more dire.

From data retrieved by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, it has been assumed that the approximate life of Saturn's rings is less than 100 million years ago.

"This is relatively short, compared to Saturn's age of over four billion years," stated Mr O'Donoghue, who is the lead author of the study on Saturn's ring rain.

Saturn's rings have been a mysterical question for the scientists as they have been struggling in finding if they were the reason why Saturn formed or they formed after Saturn's origin.