Saturn’s Secrets Revealed: There’s More To Its Rings Than Previously Believed

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NASA’s Cassini mission was finished back in 2017. The spacecraft plunged into Saturn, and it destroyed itself in a real blaze of glory.

Buy, it was able to send back so much data that it’s mindblowing. The spacecraft obviously sent back the info during its life, but it’s still studied these days as well, according to a new paper that’s published in Science magazine.

It seems that the planet has a few more secrets left to share, and some of them have been just revealed.

Interesting new findings on Saturn 

In a brand new blog post, NASA is highlighting some pretty exciting new findings that experts have discovered in Cassini’s data.

The spacecraft’s observations are revealing new details on the structure of Saturn’s iconic rings and also the dramatic differences from one ring to the next one.

Cassini scientists had decided to set the spacecraft on a course that would ultimately lead to its destroying.

But, before Cassini would crash into the planet, it would perform some really risky drives through Saturn’s rings are grab as much info as possible.

Against all odds, Cassini was not destroyed in the process. The data that it was able to send back is the heart of this new study mentioned above and reveals that there is more to Saturn’s rings that previously thought, BGR reports.

“We find structures related to the detailed sculpting of rings by embedded masses, including structures near the moon Daphnis that have apparently experienced markedly different perturbations compared to the surrounding ring material, and complex structure elements within the largest propeller-shaped disturbances,” according to experts.

“Like a planet under construction inside a disk of protoplanetary material, tiny moons embedded in Saturn’s rings interact with the particles around them,” NASA said.

The space agency concluded, “In that way, the paper provides further evidence that the rings are a window into the astrophysical disk processes that shape our solar system.”

All the info that Cassini was able to gather will provide material for massive study in the years to come as well.

Rada Mateescu

I have been blogging and posting articles for over eight years, but my passion for writing dates back in 2000. I am especially enthusiastic about technology, science, and health-related issues. When I’m not researching and writing the latest news, I’m either watching sci-fi and horror movies or checking out places worth visiting and building deep memories for later in life. I believe in empathy and continually improving myself.