Ammon – In 1610, Galileo Galilei first discovered Saturn’s magnificent rings, which he likened to “ears” with his then-pioneering telescope, primitive compared to current technology.

Now, 400 years later, anyone with simple tools can see these iconic rings with their own eyes. However, by 2025 the rings will be almost gone.

The original planetary rings are thought to have consisted of seven separate rings, and were made up of fragments of comets, asteroids and disintegrated moons that were bent close to the gas giant and torn apart by its powerful gravity. There are billions of ice cubes, all covered in space dust.

No one knows exactly how old these rings are, although a study published last May indicated that they are only small rings in cosmic terms, and may have formed 400 million years ago, less than one-tenth the age of the planet.

But the only thing we know now is that they too fade and fall down into Saturn’s atmosphere as icy rain.

However, it is very large, stretching 175,000 miles from the planet, so it will take some time for Earthlings to notice any difference, and it will “disappear completely” before at least 100 million years.

This is related to the so-called optical illusion, where the rings can be large in one dimension, but in another dimension they appear very small, and can be tens of meters thick.

Currently this is not a problem because Saturn is not in perfect alignment with Earth as it is tilted at an angle of approximately 9 degrees. Next year, it will decrease by about 3.7 degrees, and in 2025, when Saturn will be directly opposite our planet, it will disappear in an invisible line, and its beautiful rings will be too thin to see.

Fortunately, this phenomenon doesn’t last long, as the planet continues to tilt away from Earth as part of its 29.5-year cycle, slowly revealing the base of the rings until it reaches its maximum tilt in 2032, which is 27 degrees.

In a sense, the low inclination of the rings makes it easier to see Saturn’s fast-spinning moons.

“RT”