Saturn's iconic rings may be the shattered remains of a long-lost moon — and the same catastrophic event could also explain why the planet is tilted, according to new research.
Results presented at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas which ran between March 10 and 14 suggest a hypothetical moon called Chrysalis may have ventured too close to Saturn roughly 100 million years ago, where powerful tidal forces stripped away the moon's icy outer layers. Some of that debris may have remained in orbit and eventually collided and spread out to form the complex ring system we see today.
