Joel Kontinen
The most significant finding of the Cassini mission may be the realization that the Saturn system is young. It can exists for 100 million years, which is still young compared to the age of the solar system.
Writing of live science, Nadia Drake gets the 4.5 billion years for the age of the solar system. She tries a trick or two, but the experts see a problem in this.
She quotes Eric Asphaug:
"The idea that they could be around for 4.5 billion years really defies explanation in my mind," says Erik Asphaug of the University of Arizona, who studies interactions between Saturn's rings and its many moons."
Then he goes on to say:
"I see a lot of impossible geologic things. I see a planet that should look like Callisto, but instead looks like Titan. I see satellites that shouldn't exist like Enceladus and Mimas, that have heavy cratering histories—whether that means they're old or not, we don't know. And then you see Enceladus going off like a rocket, and it's the most reliably eruptive body in the solar system, and that doesn't make any sense to me as a geologist," Asphaug says. "Mimas gets more tidal heating than Enceladus and it's dead as a doornail! None of it makes sense!"
The debate is over, Saturn is young, a probably a lot younger than 100 million years.
Source:
Drake, Nadia. 2019, How Old Are Saturn's Rings? The Debate Rages On. Live Science (22 April).
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