Science
Related: About this forumSomething Strange Is Happening Inside Saturn
Unusual ripples in Saturn's rings are revealing the mysterious inner workings of the great gas giant. Planetary scientists and modelers are slowly picking apart that mystery.
Billions of particles race around Saturn's 170,000-mile-wide (273,600 kilometers) set of rings, which are mostly water ice with a smattering of rock. The rings are full of activity, including waves that ricochet outward in spiral patterns, most caused by the gravitational pull of Saturn's 62 moons. Waves caused by the moons, which orbit outside the rings' sphere, always travel outward.
But then there's a set of waves heading inward. That means there's something moving inside, too. [Video: Fly Through Space 'In Saturn's Rings']
Most scientists' models of Saturn and other gas giants assume the planet is pretty uniform just a large gas envelope surrounding a small, dense core that's perhaps the size of Earth. But by studying the rings' waves, researchers are finding the picture much more complicated.
"The one thing that might produce this [series of waves] is that some sort of disturbance inside Saturn itself is spinning around with a period that's less than 7 hours," Phillip Nicholson, a planetary scientist at Cornell University in New York, told Space.com. Researchers first noticed hints of that disturbance in the 1990s, and Nicholson's team used more precise measurements to fully document the ring waves' structures, which reflect the oscillations of the planet within sort of like recurring Saturn quakes.
more
http://www.space.com/30665-unraveling-saturn-ring-mystery.html
newfie11
(8,159 posts)Thank you
deutsey
(20,166 posts)saturnsring
(1,832 posts)Xipe Totec
(43,872 posts)Beartracks
(12,761 posts)In the book of 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was written more or less concurrent with the movie being made, the monolith's signal was sent from the moon to Saturn, and that is where the Discovery mission was headed. However, it was changed to Jupiter in the movie because Kubrick wasn't happy with the Saturn special effects. In the book's sequels, Arthur C. Clarke carried forward with Jupiter in order to match the movie.
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MasonDreams
(756 posts)w/o Bernie they'll be convinced that we aint worth saving
the_chinuk
(332 posts)I've seen SF movies and read big-concept SF novels that begin like this.
Things almost never turn out well for us in them.
Still, I'm going to continue planning for retirement
you just never know.
skamaria
(325 posts)It's always good to plan ahead even if you're not sure there's a ahead!
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
Ratty
(2,100 posts)I don't trust that liberal NASA and their stupid announcements. It's probably another plot to push the global warming hoax down our throats. And ripples in the rings? Is that all!? Call me when a face appears or the planet turns silver or something really interesting.
DemoTex
(25,370 posts)MindfulOne
(227 posts)No, not "here"... over there -->
In Rushs case its Hisanus since that's where his head usually is.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Gonzalo
(13 posts)" It's still pretty primitive, because we can only detect some of Saturn's operations"
I think almost nothing.