Is Saturn losing its rings? (CNN)

[eppur_se_muova]

The sixth planet from the sun, Saturn, is perhaps best known for its many rings, which consist of billions of particles of ice and rock. But throughout the next several months, if you look at Saturn with a telescope, you’ll see something strange – the rings seem to be disappearing.

That’s because about every 14 to 15 years, the tilt of the planet is such that we on Earth see the rings edge-on. In reality the rings are still there, but they appear nearly invisible from Earth.

The phenomenon, which stumped Galileo in the 1600s, is called a “ring plane crossing.” While the Earth has an equinox every six months, Saturn’s are more spaced out — in fact, it orbits the sun once every 29.5 years.

The rings will appear thinner and thinner until September 4, 2009, when they will seem to have vanished. On that day, we will see the sun and Saturn only 11 degrees apart in the sky, says Linda Spilker at NASA, deputy project scientist and co-investigator on the Cassini Mission to Saturn. But beware – Saturn will be in the daytime sky, making it difficult to see so close to the sun.

Unlike a solar eclipse, the Saturn-with-thin-rings phenomenon will be visible from essentially the whole Earth, because it is so far away, Spilker says. But it will be difficult to actually see this around the exact time of the ring plane crossing in September.
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more: http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2009/01/02/is-saturn-losing-its-rings/

[Posteritatis]

1. In the long run, it probably actually is

Those probably aren't a stable formation.

[Deja Q]

2. Phew. At least global warming CAN be ruled out.

Unless we've been drilling for oil over there and not telling anybody...

[TankLV]

3. I always wondered where they got all that ice for the machines in the Supermarkets...

that would explain the dissappearing...