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Science & Technology Current Affairs November 1st Week 2016
Category : Science & Technology Current
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1) Mystery behind birth of Saturn’s rings solved

  • Current Affairs Planetary rings that surround Saturn, Neptune and Uranus were formed four billion years ago when large objects passed very close to planets and got destroyed, scientists have found, solving the mystery behind the origin and diversity of these rings. 
  • The giant planets in our solar system have very diverse rings. Observations show that Saturn’s rings are made of more than 95 per cent icy particles, while the rings of Uranus and Neptune are darker and may have higher rock content.  
  • The study by researchers at Kobe University and Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan focused on the period called the Late Heavy Bombardment that is believed to have occurred 4 billion years ago in our solar system, when the giant planets underwent orbital migration. It is thought that thousands of Pluto-sized objects from the Kuiper belt existed beyond Neptune. 
  • Researchers calculated the probability that these large objects passed close to the giant planets and were destroyed by their tidal force during the Late Heavy Bombardment. Results showed that Saturn, Uranus and Neptune experienced close encounters with these large objects multiple times. The team used computer simulations to study disruption of these Kuiper belt objects by tidal force when they passed by the planets. They found that in many cases fragments comprising 0.1-10 per cent of the initial mass of the objects were captured into orbits around the planet.