Although today we know many details Saturn, there are still many unknowns around him. One of the things of greatest interest are its distinctive rings, which are much younger than the planet itself and remain stable in the plane of its orbit while Saturn’s spin axis wobbles dramatically.

This is suggested by a new modeling study published in Science the oddities and differences between the planet and its rings may be due to the destroyed moon. The hypothesis suggests that Saturn would have another moon that caused gravitational interactions, which would explain the large oscillation that the planet has. These interactions would have thrown the moon out of its orbit towards Saturn, a process that would have destroyed it to form the rings from the resulting material.

With a solar system that is more than four billion years old, Saturn seems to have had a troubled existence. Titan, its largest satellite, is moving away from the planet; Enceladus, the sixth largest moon, is responsible for supplying one of the rings with material ejected by its geysers; and on the other hand, small Mondays are detected that condense from other ring materials.

Saturn’s rings could be relatively young, with an estimated age of about 100 million years now.. The amount of time was calculated from interactions with nearby moons and the color changes that accumulate over time in a high-radiation environment. Go ahead, not everyone agrees with the estimate, but this disagreement serves to show that there are still many unknowns to be resolved.

Not content with the rings and all the questions they raise, the axis of rotation is another feature of Saturn that has puzzled scientists, as it ranges from 25 degrees to a fully vertical plane of the planet’s orbit. This may be because Saturn is entering something called “orbital resonance” with Neptune.

Some gravitational interactions may end up strengthening rather than averaging out, causing effects that accumulate over time. In the case of the orbital resonance of Saturn and Neptune, this could affect the orientation of the poles of the former.

But it’s still unclear whether there really is an orbital resonance between Saturn and Neptune, so the research team built a model of the first planet with data from its gravitational field by tracking small changes in Cassini’s motion during its multiple orbits.

With the available data, it was concluded that Saturn was very close to resonance with Neptune, falling short due to a 1% deviation. Even plugging in the changing location of Titan, there was no way to get the two planets to resonate. If Saturn were brought into resonance with Neptune, the changing orbits of Saturn’s moons could not generate enough force to break it and bring the planet to its current state.

Another possible explanation is based on a supposed moon named Chrysalis that would have been destroyed in a collision with the planet.. Its past existence could generate enough force to push Saturn into resonance. With their subsequent destruction, from which the rings would unfold, the gravitational interactions would change enough to break this resonance, although this idea would require another model to be developed.

Researchers have placed Chrysalis orbiting between Titan and Iapetus. Assuming Chrysalis was similar in size to Iapetus, one of Saturn’s largest moons, its orbit would remain stable until a change in Titan caused the two moons to enter their own gravitational resonance. At that point, Chrysalis’ trajectory becomes chaotic.

But the resonance scenario between Chrysalis and Titan is not the only one the scientists considered, as they performed hundreds of simulations. In others, Chrysalis collided with a larger moon to create orbital clutter, and in others it was ejected into space. The most interesting fact is that in 5% of the simulations, the predicted moon was seen to end up on an eccentric orbit that would cause it to touch Saturn’s surface, causing its destruction and its material entering orbit to form rings.although a certain percentage of said material would be absorbed by the planet.

In addition, the model also showed that a possible past existence of the cocoon could create enough additional forces to bring Saturn into resonance with Neptune, creating the former’s orbital oscillation, but this would be disrupted when it was destroyed or expelled. the door to the current situation would open.

In short, Saturn and its satellites still raise many unanswered questions. The theory of a past moon colliding with the planet is one of many, so it now remains to be proven whether it is the true explanation for why Saturn is the way it is today.