Physics & Astronomy News

	'Tis the Season -- for Plasma Changes at Saturn Researchers have discovered one way the bubble of charged particles around Saturn -- known as the magnetosphere -- changes with the planet's seasons.
	NASA Probe Gets Close-Up Views of Large Hurricane on Saturn NASA's Cassini spacecraft has provided scientists the first close-up, visible-light views of a behemoth hurricane swirling around Saturn's north pole.

	Unleashing oxygen ‘Superlattice’ structure could give a huge boost to oxygen reaction in fuel cells, increasing their power potential.
	Understanding the turbulence in plasmas New experiments in a tokamak fusion reactor reveal details of a cooling process, potentially bringing practical fusion closer.
	Invisible particles could enhance thermoelectric devices New approach could improve the efficiency of devices that harness power from temperature differences.

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The Real Lord of the Rings

by NASA Marshall Space Flight Center and ScienceIQ.com

The appearance of Saturn's rings relates to the angle of our view.
Image Courtesy NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and Science@NASA

Why is Saturn the only planet with bright, easily seen rings? Saturn is not the only planet in our solar system with rings. Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus all have rings. Jupiter's rings are much smaller and very dark when compared to Saturn's rings. Jupiter's rings could be much older than Saturn's rings if the idea is correct that the particles would become dull as space dust sticks to them. Neptune and Uranus have very dark, almost black, rings. Scientists have said that these three planets' rings might have formed after collisions with meteorites or asteroids that sent dirt and rocks into orbit around these planets. So, whatever formed Saturn's rings may not have happened to any other planet in a very long time.

How did the rings form? This question could have many possible answers. The size and shape of the rings give us some hints. The rings are very wide, 250,000 km, but very thin, only a few tens of meters (about 100 feet). If the rings started out as bits of matter spread over a large area, over time collisions could have slowly 'collapsed' them into flattened rings. And the rings certainly are flat! If you imagine a model of Saturn one meter wide, the rings would be only 1/10,000 the thickness of a razor blade. Wow!

Another possible origin is one of Saturn's moons that was destroyed by a collision. The dirt and rocks from that moon spread into the rings. Keep in mind that the rings are like a flat plate that cuts Saturn in two halves as if all of the pieces were originally orbiting in one plane. The pieces of stuff that make up the rings of Saturn range in size from microscopic dust to barn-size boulders. This big difference in size of the pieces of the rings fits either of the two theories about the formation of the rings.

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'The mathematician's patterns, like the painter's or the poets, must be beautiful; the ideas, like the colours or the words, must fit together in a harmonious way. Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics.'

Godfrey Hardy
(1877-1947)

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