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Space Science

Saturn's Insides Are Sloshing Around (technologyreview.com) 32

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
A new paper suggests Saturn's core is more like a fluid than a solid, and makes up more of the planet's interior than we thought. From a report: With its massive rings stretching out 175,000 miles in diameter, Saturn is a one-of-a-kind planet in the solar system. Turns out its insides are pretty unique as well. A new study published in Nature Astronomy on Monday suggests the sixth planet from the sun has a "fuzzy" core that jiggles around. It's quite a surprising find. "The conventional picture for Saturn or Jupiter's interior structure is that of a compact core of rocky or icy material, surrounded by a lower-density envelope of hydrogen and helium," says Christopher Mankovich, a planetary scientist at Caltech and coauthor of the new study, along with his colleague Jim Fuller.

What Mankovich and Fuller glimpsed "is essentially a blurred-out version of that conventional structure." Instead of seeing a tidy boundary dividing the heavier rocks and ice from the lighter elements, they found that the core is oscillating so that there is no single, clear separation. This diffuse core extends out to about 60% of Saturn's radius -- a huge leap from the 10 to 20% of a planet's radius that a traditional core would occupy. One of the wildest aspects of the study is that the findings did not come from measuring the core directly -- something we've never been able to do. Instead, Mankovich and Fuller turned to seismographic data on Saturn's rings first collected by NASA's Cassini mission, which explored the Saturnian system from 2004 to 2017.

"Saturn essentially rings like a bell at all times," says Mankovich. As the core wobbles, it creates gravitational perturbations that affect the surrounding rings, creating subtle "waves" that can be measured. When the planet's core was oscillating, Cassini was able to study Saturn's C ring (the second block of rings from the planet) and measure the small yet consistent gravitational "ringing" caused by the core. Mankovich and Fuller looked at the data and created a model for Saturn's structure that would explain these seismographic waves -- and the result is a fuzzy interior. "This study is the only direct evidence for a diffuse core structure in a fluid planet to date," says Mankovich.
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Saturn's Insides Are Sloshing Around More

Saturn's Insides Are Sloshing Around

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  • A thing is unique or it is not. The "uni" means there is exactly one of this unique thing.

    It's not "pretty unique", or "most unique", or "very unique" (barf).

    I suppose you could say "almost unique", but that seems to go in the same pile with constructions like "how many water are there?"

    I think the word you're looking for is "rare". Or else just a bare "unique" without modifiers, if it's unique.

    • Everything is unique because no two [macro] objects can exist in the same place in space-time. But colloquially that is not what people mean when they say unique.

      Qualifiers on unique are to indicate the significance of the qualities that lead to uniqueness, not an illogical gradient of a binary state.

    • Enough people already perceive this as grammatical that your way of using this word is no longer the only way. This is what language does. People are also chomping at the bit and holding down the fort, everything that was addictive is now also addicting, an "amount of people" is about as accepted as "a number of people" (and relatedly if I take some people away there are less of them, nowadays there don't need to be fewer). "Literally" is going the same way as "truly" "very" and "really" and as much as we d

  • And it's still trying to fight its way out!

  • Like a first kiss (Score:3)

    by TomGreenhaw ( 929233 ) on Tuesday August 17, 2021 @02:23PM (#61702129)
    If you've ever looked through a telescope to see Saturn live in the sky for the first time, you know what I mean.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      The first time I saw it in a telescope it was in front of a particularly starless section of sky, there was just this thing that looked like a plastic toy hanging in blackness, didn't look real at all.

    • It really is just like that.

      We see/hear the reaction all the time at my astronomy club's public observation events. Kids and adults alike are equally astounded.

  • Not a second would I believe that near the core of a large planet like Saturn the temperature and pressure allowed "ice" to exist, and even "rocks" are probably rather very hot molten lava at such a place.
    • Think the English language has context.

      Planetary ice, Comet Stuff - A solid that will become readily is a Gas at the orbit of Earth at near vacuum state. . At sufficient pressure and temp we call it a solid, ice is a solid by when we say a solid nitrogen core we are also referring to pressure. tempter and physical properties. When its electrons float free we referer to the same Ice as Metallic hydrogen and other solid form of common elements. .

      This all drives Condensed matter physics nuts, as all phases

  • it's a model ... (Score:3)

    by znrt ( 2424692 ) on Tuesday August 17, 2021 @05:30PM (#61702841)

    "This study is the only direct evidence for a diffuse core structure in a fluid planet to date,"

    i would argue that a model that fits the data is not necessarily evidence. it might be a good model, but never evidence, let alone "good evidence".

    that statement needs a solid explanation on why that particular model is supposed to be correct and the best model possible to fit the data.

  • Saturn regrets eating that gas station burrito for lunch.

  • I thought the disturbance in Saturn's rings was caused by the Fithp's refueling stop?

    • I thought the disturbance in Saturn's rings was caused by the Fithp's refueling stop?

      That was the F ring. This is the C ring. Completely different disturbance. The fithp are still coming.

      (Really really slowly...)

      • You mean Saturn doesn't have one ring to rule them all? Oh, I get it; that would be Jupiter, by Jove.

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