Age and Fate of Saturn's Rings

When Saturn was the only known ringed planet, the rings were believed to be as old as the solar system, some 4.5 billion years old in the conventional chronology. The existence of the rings to the present day was taken as evidence of this chronology. In the 1970s and 1980s, other planets were found to have shortlived, rapidly dissipating rings with life times of the order of millennia. Subsequently, the view of Saturn's rings' age began to change. They are now viewed conventionally as no more than hundreds of millions of years old, and a former prop of the conventional chronology has now vanished. Furthermore, an examination of ring observations and data unconstrained by conventional chronology indicates that the actual life time of Saturn's rings may be of the order of tens of thousands of years, and possibly less.