Saturn’s icy rings are probably heating its atmosphere, giving it an ultraviolet glow
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- 19 Apr 2023
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The rings that make Saturn such a spectacle are probably heating its atmosphere and making it glow at ultraviolet wavelengths.
Researchers detected an excess of ultraviolet emission in Saturn’s northern hemisphere that comes from hydrogen atoms. The emission, known as Lyman-alpha radiation, is probably the result of water ice, which contains hydrogen, falling into the atmosphere from the planet’s rings, the researchers propose March 30 in the Planetary Science Journal.
The detection of similar emission from a distant world could someday lead to the discovery of a Saturn-like planet orbiting another star.
The key to the discovery came after two spacecraft — the Hubble Space Telescope and Cassini — observed Saturn simultaneously in 2017, right before Cassini plunged into the planet’s atmosphere.
This allowed Ben-Jaffel and colleagues to calibrate the ultraviolet detectors on those spacecraft as well as detectors on Voyager 1 and 2, which flew past Saturn in 1980 and 1981, and the International Ultraviolet Explorer, an Earth-orbiting satellite that also observed Saturn. Comparing these ultraviolet observations revealed a band of excess Lyman-alpha radiation spanning 5° to 35° N latitude on Saturn. Read More…
