October 18, 2015

Astronomers Study Internal Changes In Saturn



Images of the rings taken by Nasa's Cassini spacecraft are helping to reveal patterns within the rings, which are giving scientists clues about what could be going on inside the planet. Saturn's rings captured using an ultraviolet imager by Cassini are shown above.

Perhaps one of Al Gore's many legal climate change experts can file a lawsuit compelling Saturn to behave according to desirable computer modeling.

[From article]
Strange ripples in the rings around Saturn have suggested there may be something moving deep inside the gas giant.
Astronomers have found unusual wave like patterns in the rock and ice that make up Saturn's rings which appear to be travelling towards the centre of the planet.
Most of these 'waves' in Saturn's rings move outwards as a result of the gravitational pull by the planet's 62 moons drawing material in the rings towards them.
[. . .]
Dr Phillip Nicholson, a planetary scientist at Cornell University in New York who has been leading the analysis, told Space.com: 'Even dropping a probe into the atmosphere would not necessarily help a lot, because the probe will only get down to a pressure of five or 10 atmospheres before it gets cooked or squashed.
'We need to go much deeper to understand this.'
They are using data being beamed back by Nasa's Cassini spacecraft which has been carefully measuring the light passing through each of the rings.
This is allowing scientists to build up a picture of their density and look for subtle changes in the waves, which give clues about the oscillations going on inside Saturn.
Similar techniques are used to study distant stars to understand more about their internal structure.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3253680/What-stirring-deep-inside-Saturn-Strange-spiralling-ripples-gas-giant-s-rings-revealing-planet-s-internal-structure.html

What is stirring deep inside Saturn? Strange spiralling ripples in gas giant's rings are revealing the planet's internal structure
Scientists are studying strange waves moving through Saturn's rings
The unusual patterns suggest something is spinning deep inside the planet
They may help to unravel what lies beneath the planet's dense atompshere
By Richard Gray for MailOnline
Published: 10:50 EST, 29 September 2015 | Updated: 11:31 EST, 29 September 2015

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