Before the age of interplanetary probes it was common opinion among astronomers (based more on common sense than on observational evidence, which at that time were still very poor) that Saturn’s rings originated at the same time as the formation of the planet, so about 4.6 billion years ago.
The data produced from the interplanetary missions of the eighties and from the successive observations of Hubble overturned this hypothesis, suggesting an age of only one hundred million years. A very controversial estimate, however, and that at a certain point the observational data collected in 2007 by the Cassini probe and some mathematical simulations, seemed to have led back to the original value of 4.6 billion years. Everything solved? The rings were therefore as old as the planet?
No way! With a resounding final twist, the dive into the atmosphere of the planet with which in 2017 Cassini put an end to its mission overturned the judgment in extremis, ruling that the rings had to be young, or rather very young, probably formed when dinosaurs were still running on Earth