May 14 · 2013
thenewenlightenmentage: “Saturn Is Shaking Its Rings Oscillations inside the giant planet perturb its rings, promising new clues to the nature of its enormous interior. Saturn’s rings are such a spectacle that you can see them through even a modest...

thenewenlightenmentage:

Saturn Is Shaking Its Rings

Oscillations inside the giant planet perturb its rings, promising new clues to the nature of its enormous interior.

Saturn’s rings are such a spectacle that you can see them through even a modest telescope. Made mostly of water ice, the rings contain countless particles, large and small, that orbit the planet in a thin plane. For decades scientists have known that gravitational tugs from Saturn’s many moons imprint patterns on the rings. Now they have discovered a new ring sculptor: oscillations of the planet itself, which promise insight into the interior of the solar system’s second-largest planet.

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