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MiSK Launches Interactive Platform for Discussing Future of Technology in Saudi Arabia

The MiSK Academy launches an interactive platform for discussing future of technology in Saudi Arabia. (MiSK Academy Twitter)
The MiSK Academy launches an interactive platform for discussing future of technology in Saudi Arabia. (MiSK Academy Twitter)
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MiSK Launches Interactive Platform for Discussing Future of Technology in Saudi Arabia

The MiSK Academy launches an interactive platform for discussing future of technology in Saudi Arabia. (MiSK Academy Twitter)
The MiSK Academy launches an interactive platform for discussing future of technology in Saudi Arabia. (MiSK Academy Twitter)

MiSK Academy, an arm of the Misk Foundation established by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, launched MiSK Academy Forum “1 Hour panel Talk”, a platform for periodic discussion between a group of experts and specialists in various topics in different fields, including technology, leadership and digital media.

The aim of the forum is to facilitate the transfer of expertise and raise awareness in the field of digital media and equip youths who are interested in media with the information they need to develop the sector in the country.

The panel discussion, entitled “The Future of Animation in Saudi Arabia”, was held at Prince Sultan University and hosted by the CEO of Manga Productions Essam Bukhary, filmmaker and director Ayman Jamal, whose movie Bilal was listed among of the top 10 animation films for 2018 and designer, director and animator Malek Najjar, who directed the series Masaamir (Nails), and Omar bin Dahlous, a painter and the art director of You Brand.

More than 100 people were in attendance, including motion graphic filmmakers and those interested in the media field. The discussion included an evaluation of local experiences, presented the challenges faced by animators and studied creative solutions to solve those problems. The panel also discussed the animation market, its future and the best schools in this field

The MiSK Academy is working on launching a number of educational and developmental programs with the aim of training Saudi youths and equipping them with the skills they need to help the Kingdom move towards becoming a digital economy. These include technical, financial technology and creative digital media programs. So far, more than 9,000 have been trained, with the career development reaching up to 80 percent.

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How Old Are Saturn’s Rings? Study Suggests They Could Be as Old as the Planet

This April 25, 2007 image made available by NASA shows a part of the rings of the planet Saturn, as seen from the Cassini spacecraft. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute via AP)
This April 25, 2007 image made available by NASA shows a part of the rings of the planet Saturn, as seen from the Cassini spacecraft. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute via AP)
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How Old Are Saturn’s Rings? Study Suggests They Could Be as Old as the Planet

This April 25, 2007 image made available by NASA shows a part of the rings of the planet Saturn, as seen from the Cassini spacecraft. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute via AP)
This April 25, 2007 image made available by NASA shows a part of the rings of the planet Saturn, as seen from the Cassini spacecraft. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute via AP)

New research suggests that Saturn’s rings may be older than they look — possibly as old as the planet.

Instead of being a youthful 400 million years old as commonly thought, the icy, shimmering rings could be around 4.5 billion years old just like Saturn, a Japanese-led team reported Monday.

The scientists surmise Saturn’s rings may be pristine not because they are young but because they are dirt-resistant.

Saturn's rings are long thought to be between 100 million and 400 million years old based on more than a decade of observations by NASA's Cassini spacecraft before its demise in 2017.

Images by Cassini showed no evidence of any darkening of the rings by impacting micrometeoroids — space rock particles smaller than a grain of sand — prompting scientists to conclude the rings formed long after the planet.

Through computer modeling, the Institute of Science Tokyo's Ryuki Hyodo and his team demonstrated that micrometeoroids vaporize once slamming into the rings, with little if any dark and dirty residue left behind. They found that the resulting charged particles get sucked toward Saturn or out into space, keeping the rings spotless and challenging the baby rings theory. Their results appear in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Hyodo said it's possible Saturn's rings could be somewhere between the two extreme ages — around the halfway mark of 2.25 billion years old. But the solar system was much more chaotic during its formative years with large planetary-type objects migrating and interacting all over the place, just the sort of scenario that would be conducive to producing Saturn's rings.

“Considering the solar system’s evolutionary history, it’s more likely that the rings formed closer to" Saturn's earliest times, he said in an email.