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A R C H I V E S

Since all the Beauties of the Universe in general - as well as many of the ones of our Solar System in particular - cannot always be adequately understood nor explained (and, please, forgive us if and when we say that those who state and declare that today's Science can really explain everything, in our opinion, as IPF, do not have the least idea of what they are talking about...), we have learned that, sometimes, and in front of certain phenomena which, as we just said, are not only impossible to recreate but (and for now), are also impossible to be observed from a REALLY close distance (thus making them extremely difficult to be fully understood and therefore explained in a satisfying way), it is Science itself that calls for some speculation.

This small foreword was absolutely necessary because the very few lines that shall follow (and which relate to the possible origin of Saturn's Rings) are, in our humble opinion, almost pure Scientific Speculation. Yes, of course we know that the hypothesis which we shall try to illustrate do represent an "informed Scientific Speculations", but still we have no actual proof (and, likely, we shall never have it) that even one of them is correct, either in full or just in part.

Given all that, we can start by saying that, according to several (either recent and/or less recent) Theories, the Rings of Saturn should be EXTREMELY old, meaning that they could be dating to the formation of Saturn (as well as of the whole Solar System) itself. Furthermore (and as a matter of fact), nowadays there are just 2 (two) Main Theories regarding the origin of Saturn's Rings which are thought to be sufficiently believable: the first one, originally proposed by the French Astronomer Édouard Robert Roche in the 19th Century, is that the Rings were once a moon of Saturn (named "Veritas", after a Roman Goddess) whose orbit, for (obviously...) unknown reasons, decayed (however, we suggest, as IPF and among many other possibilities, the occurrence of a powerful impact, that was strong enough to disrupt Veritas' orbit but NOT to disintegrate - at least, not entirely - the moon itself), until the moon came close enough to its Parent Planet so to be litterally ripped apart by the Saturnian Tidal Forces (in other words, and assuming that this Theory is basically correct, "Veritas" must have been some sort of a "Rubble-pile moon", such as a Celestial Body which was so fragile that it could not pass the so-called "Roche Limit" without being - almost - completely disintegrated). A variation of this first Main Theory (a variation that, however, we believe - as IPF - to be extremely unlikely) is that the "Veritas" moon simply disintegrated after being struck by a large Comet or an Asteroid.

The second Main Theory is that the Rings of Saturn were never part of a moon, but they are, instead, some physical leftovers of the original Proto-Planatary Nebula (i.e.: Nebular-like Material) from which Saturn itself was formed.