Hubble is investigating mysterious spokes in Saturn's rings:
Saturn is famous for its beautiful rings, but these rings have a strange feature: "spokes" which appear intermittently. These spots in the rings can be light or dark and can look like blobs or like lines stretching radially outward from the planet, and they appear in a regular cycle related to the planet's equinox. Now, the Hubble Space Telescope has the opportunity to study these oddities of the rings in more detail and researchers hope they can learn more about what causes these features.
The spokes were first noticed by the Cassini mission to Saturn in the 1980s, and since then they have been seen just before and after the equinox: the time at which day and night are of equal length across the planet because the sun is directly over the equator. On Earth, we experience two equinoxes each year, and the same is true for Saturn — but because Saturn is further out in its orbit and its year is much longer, its equinoxes occur just once every 15 Earth years.
[...] "Despite years of excellent observations by the Cassini mission, the precise beginning and duration of the spoke season is still unpredictable, rather like predicting the first storm during hurricane season," Simon explained.
[...] The current theory of the spokes' origin is that they are related to Saturn's magnetic field, as charged particles from the sun interact with it in a way that could charge particles within the rings, shifting these particles out of place with the rest of the ring structure. But astronomers need to do more research to be sure of this theory — and to find out whether similar spokes could occur on other planets with rings, such as Neptune or Jupiter.
"It's a fascinating magic trick of nature we only see on Saturn —for now at least," Simon said.
(Score: 1) by BlueCoffee on Saturday February 18, @02:54PM (3 children)
The article itself correctly gives kudos to Voyager (1980) seeing them first, but for some reason the summary here states Cassini (2004-2017)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Saturday February 18, @03:45PM (2 children)
People forget original occurrences all too easily. I'm sure Cassini did see them better...
As for the spokes themselves, I highly suspect harmonic convergence, the music of the rings if you will, periodic gravitational reinforcements which cause the ring material to "clump" and pull apart leaving void spaces. They wouldn't be rings at all but coalesce into moons if Saturn somehow stopped at equinox, but as it continues to its solstices the periodic reinforcements are chaotically blurred again, allowing the smoother ring structures to persist.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Sunday February 19, @04:07AM (1 child)
You made me think of this...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wvJAgrUBF4w [youtube.com]
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday February 19, @01:44PM
That's a cool one.
I wonder if the particles (salt in the video, could be sand, talcum powder?) could be captured so they wouldn't need constant replenishment without destroying the beauty of the patterns?
Also, I bet that's loud and the demo was smack in audible bands. I'm picturing a public installation about 4 meters square using marbles and infrasound...
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday February 21, @03:32PM
For a moment I read that as Sauron's rings.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"