Saturn is losing its rings quicker than expected, NASA warns

Hunter Waite, principal investigator for the spectrometer on Cassini's nose and lead author of the study published in the journal Science. "Water ice, along with the newly discovered organic compounds, is falling out of the rings way faster than anyone thought -- as much as 10,000 kilograms of material per second," he added. "We know that it's bumping material out of the rings at least 10 times faster than we thought," said Thomas Cravens, co-author of one of the October studies and a University of Kansas professor of physics and astronomy. "If it's not being replenished, the rings aren't going to last -- you've got a hole in your bucket. Jupiter probably had a ring that evolved into the current wispy ring, and it could be for similar reasons. Rings do come and go. At some point they gradually drain away unless somehow they're getting new material."

Saturn is losing its rings quicker than expected, NASA warns

Well, we have been warned so now we can...?

Per the story from Tara John, CNN. The rings are made of water ice and organic material and we do not know where it came/comes from. The rings have only been there for 100 million years and will be gone in a 100 million years (if not being replenished).

Water ice and organic material rains down onto the planet at a rate of an Olympic-sized swimming pool every half hour (think that is what it is saying). Pretty good story with lots more info, was worth the read for me.

a reply to: LookingAtMars

Would be a good place to harvest water as we colonize the outer solar system in a few centuries.

originally posted by: LookingAtMars
Well, we have been warned so now we can...?

Do nuthin', I guess. Take more pictures. Tell the grandkids how there used to be rings there until that other danged political party wrecked them, like they wreck everything else.

originally posted by: projectvxn
a reply to: LookingAtMars
Would be a good place to harvest water as we colonize the outer solar system in a few centuries.

Our robots won't need water. They'll rust!

So could this be happening due to sun activity increasing the general temperature around the planet or some other effect caused by increased solar activity? Just wondering if this shows that our 'global warming' is indeed caused by solar activity and not human activity.

a reply to: LookingAtMars

Damn global warming........
Sucks those pretty rings are going bye bye though.

So, the marriage is not working out? A hot planet comes around and the ring disappears.

a reply to: Blue Shift

Grand grand grand grandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrand grandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrand kids.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Blue Shift

Grand grand grand grandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrand grandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrand kids.

Robot grandkids.

This just in:

Mankind's CO2 emissions have been accelerated by the van-allen belts and ejected into our solar system and are beginning to affect our neighboring planets. Immediate solutions unavailable but the carbon tax will begin funding towards said solution! Authorities are considering carbon emission to be punishable as not only an environmental offense, but racial offense, as mankind must consider local interplanetary lifeforms with equality. Stay tuned!

Holy Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. We are now ruining the whole solar freakin system! Oooh, beer. Pfffft. All better.

100 million years! Time to panic!

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Blue Shift

Grand grand grand grandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrand grandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrand kids.

More like grand x 4,000,000.

originally posted by: CthulhuMythos
So could this be happening due to sun activity increasing the general temperature around the planet or some other effect caused by increased solar activity? Just wondering if this shows that our 'global warming' is indeed caused by solar activity and not human activity.

This is not something that just started to happen, it is more something NASA thinks it has just figured out.
Climate change is happening in the whole of the solar system though, as the Sun's goes through it's cycles so does the system around it.

a reply to: LookingAtMars

Climate change is happening in the whole of the solar system though

Is it?

Of course, outer planets do have very long "years" and thus, very long seasons.

a reply to: schuyler

The mods would have objected.

originally posted by: chadderson
This just in:

Mankind's CO2 emissions have been accelerated by the van-allen belts and ejected into our solar system and are beginning to affect our neighboring planets. Immediate solutions unavailable but the carbon tax will begin funding towards said solution! Authorities are considering carbon emission to be punishable as not only an environmental offense, but racial offense, as mankind must consider local interplanetary lifeforms with equality. Stay tuned!

Link please

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: LookingAtMars

Climate change is happening in the whole of the solar system though

Is it?

Of course, outer planets do have very long "years" and thus, very long seasons.

From Neptune's brightening to Mars warming the Sun has been blamed for warming of Earth and other worlds for a while now.

a reply to: LookingAtMars

Yes, it has been blamed. By some. But there is no evidence that it is the case.
Did you bother to read those articles?

More scientific theories being proven incorrect.
Only 10 times off of projection.
Makes us all so confident in their other theories.