Saturn is connected electrically to Enceladus

Spread the love

i-6f77fe48e9a054f2dea29978be7ac072-pia13765-43-thumb-500x375-64016.jpg

PASADENA, Calif. — NASA is releasing the first images and sounds of an electrical connection between Saturn and one of its moons, Enceladus. The data collected by the agency’s Cassini spacecraft enable scientists to improve their understanding of the complex web of interaction between the planet and its numerous moons. The results of the data analysis are published in the journals Nature

Scientists previously theorized an electrical circuit should exist at Saturn. After analyzing data that Cassini collected in 2008, scientists saw a glowing patch of ultraviolet light emissions near Saturn’s north pole that marked the presence of a circuit, even though the moon is 240,000 kilometers (150,000 miles) away from the planet.

The patch occurs at the end of a magnetic field line connecting Saturn and its moon Enceladus. The area, known as an auroral footprint, is the spot where energetic electrons dive into the planet’s atmosphere, following magnetic field lines that arc between the planet’s north and south polar regions.

“The footprint discovery at Saturn is one of the most important fields and particle revelations from Cassini and ultimately may help us understand Saturn’s strange magnetic field,” said Marcia Burton, a Cassini fields and particles scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “It gives us the first visual connection between Saturn and one of its moons.”


Read the rest here

Have you read the breakthrough novel of the year? When you are done with that, try:

In Search of Sungudogo by Greg Laden, now in Kindle or Paperback
*Please note:
Links to books and other items on this page and elsewhere on Greg Ladens' blog may send you to Amazon, where I am a registered affiliate. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, which helps to fund this site.

Spread the love

10 thoughts on “Saturn is connected electrically to Enceladus

  1. is it even possible for a planet to be connected to somethin that sounds fake? when I read this blog all i see in every word is lie lie lie. can YOU even PROVE that this is true? well can you?

  2. No surprises here. Io, which is a major source of plasma in Jupiter’s magnetosphere, has a similar footprint in Jupiter’s auroral region. So do the other Galilean satellites, less strongly because they do not emit as much plasma as Io does. Enceladus is a major plasma source in Saturn’s magnetosphere (this part actually was a surprised when it was announced), so it’s not a stretch to think that it might have such a footprint.

  3. is it even possible for a planet to be connected to somethin that sounds fake? when I read this blog all i see in every word is lie lie lie. can YOU even PROVE that this is true? well can you?

    Fuckin’ magnetic fields, how do they work?

  4. Saturn is connected electrically to Enceladus

    This was a very interesting post. Iâ??m glad you care enough about the planets to share this with us. I had no idea that the planets had their own moons that is a good thing to know. So now that you know this, does it mean we may have found a new source of solar energy?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *