Gregorio Ricerchi | Searcharxiv

arXiv2026

Saturn's rings age I.: Reconsideration of the exposure age

At the end of the Cassini mission, Saturn's rings have been claimed to be spectacularly young compared to the age of the Solar System: their unusual ice-rich composition corresponds to initially pure ice rings polluted by interplanetary dust particles for 100 to 400 Myr. Since then, this exposure age has been commonly accepted as the real age of the rings. In this paper, we review the processes that are involved in determining the exposure age. We aim to see how the exposure age depends on various parameters and how relevant it is to define the real rings age. First, a new expression for the gravitational focusing onto planar rings, important parameter but crudely defined in the literature, is derived. Then, an analytical formula describing how the dust fraction varies with time in static or viscously evolving rings is provided, including possible vaporisation at impact. Finally, we introduce a cleaning process from space weathering to possibly alter dust and reduce its amount to make rings look younger than they are. We first found that the gravitational focusing is 5 times less important than previously thought, which automatically increases the exposure age from 0.5 to 2 Gyr. Moreover, depending on the impact properties (vaporisation rate, space weathering efficiency), several billion years can easily be reached. Finally, we find that the dust fraction in the rings converges towards a finite value which, in particular with an efficient space weathering mechanism, can be close to the observed one in the current rings. In this case, neither the age nor the initial composition of the rings can be derived, and the measure of the dust fraction and bombardment rate only constrains the physical parameters of the impacts and the efficiency of the space weathering. As long as the latter parameters are not known, the exposure age argument in favour of young rings is completely undercut.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2026

Dynamics of planetary rings under thermal forces

Planetary rings provide natural laboratories for studying the fundamental processes that govern the evolution of planetary systems. However, several key features, such as the sharp inner edges of Saturn's rings remain unresolved. In this work, we introduce and quantify the Eclipse-Yarkovsky (EY) effect, a thermal torque arising from asymmetric thermal emission of particles during planetary eclipses, which is effective for particles larger than millimeters in size. We formulate this effect within a continuum framework appropriate for collisionally coupled planetary rings and derive the continuum evolution equation that includes the EY torque and viscous diffusion (Eq.26), constraining its magnitude using ring particle spin distributions obtained from N-body simulations. We find that the EY effect systematically produces a positive angular momentum flux that could overcome the viscous torque, driving ring material outward and leading to long-term decretion. The total EY torque principally depends on the optical depth, in which we identify three dynamical regimes: dense, transitional, and tenuous regimes, each exhibiting distinct evolutionary pathways. In the dense or transition regimes, the EY torque can produce a sharp inner edge such as that of Saturn's A ring. In the tenuous regime, it can drive an entire ring outward while preserving shape. This outward transport may also facilitate satellite formation beyond the Roche limit. We also quantitatively show that planetary thermal radiation on rings exerts an opposing torque, namely planetary-Yarkovsky effect, whose importance depends on planetary emissivity and ring-particle albedo, and may lead to inward transport in Saturn's close-in rings.

astro-ph.EP↗