News > Saturn makes waves in its own rings

Saturn makes waves in its own rings

18/08/2021 03:18 PM | Click to read full article

In the same way that earthquakes cause our planet to rumble, oscillations in the interior of Saturn make the gas giant jiggle around ever so slightly. Those motions, in turn, cause ripples in Saturn's rings. Two astronomers have analyzed those rippling rings to reveal new information about the core of Saturn.

The findings suggest that the planet's core is not a hard ball of rock, but a diffuse soup of ice, rock, and metallic fluids-or what the scientists refer to as a "fuzzy" core.

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