Aug 17, 2021 02:29 AM
https://www.slashgear.com/saturns-full-o...-16687083/
INTRO: Saturn’s core is not the dense mass of rock that scientists once believed, but more likely a soupy sludge according to fresh analysis of data from the ill-fated Cassini spacecraft. Though NASA’s probe may have met a crushing end as it plunged into the gas giant’s atmosphere back in 2017, information about the way Saturn’s rings wobble have unlocked unexpected details about what’s deep inside.
Although Saturn may be a gas giant, the sheer extent of the forces involved near the center of the planet had led to theories that it would be rock. After all, with the pressures of gravity applied to materials there, the crushing forces were expected to have solidified the core.
However Cassini data doesn’t necessarily support that assumption. While the spacecraft was destroyed far before it reached Saturn’s core, analysis of readings of the planet’s distinctive rings allowed astronomers at Caltech to come up with another theory. By examining the jiggling of those rings, they could extrapolate to what might be going on within Saturn itself.
“We used Saturn’s rings like a giant seismograph to measure oscillations inside the planet,” Jim Fuller, assistant professor of theoretical astrophysics at Caltech and co-author of the newly-published study, explains. “This is the first time we’ve been able to seismically probe the structure of a gas giant planet, and the results were pretty surprising.” (MORE)
https://youtu.be/lO27OL1bVR0
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/lO27OL1bVR0
INTRO: Saturn’s core is not the dense mass of rock that scientists once believed, but more likely a soupy sludge according to fresh analysis of data from the ill-fated Cassini spacecraft. Though NASA’s probe may have met a crushing end as it plunged into the gas giant’s atmosphere back in 2017, information about the way Saturn’s rings wobble have unlocked unexpected details about what’s deep inside.
Although Saturn may be a gas giant, the sheer extent of the forces involved near the center of the planet had led to theories that it would be rock. After all, with the pressures of gravity applied to materials there, the crushing forces were expected to have solidified the core.
However Cassini data doesn’t necessarily support that assumption. While the spacecraft was destroyed far before it reached Saturn’s core, analysis of readings of the planet’s distinctive rings allowed astronomers at Caltech to come up with another theory. By examining the jiggling of those rings, they could extrapolate to what might be going on within Saturn itself.
“We used Saturn’s rings like a giant seismograph to measure oscillations inside the planet,” Jim Fuller, assistant professor of theoretical astrophysics at Caltech and co-author of the newly-published study, explains. “This is the first time we’ve been able to seismically probe the structure of a gas giant planet, and the results were pretty surprising.” (MORE)
https://youtu.be/lO27OL1bVR0
