Thursday, April 18

Tag: Saturn

To what extent is a day on Saturn? Scientists at last have an answer
Science

To what extent is a day on Saturn? Scientists at last have an answer

A puzzle about our Solar System — to what extent is a day on Saturn? — has kept space experts up around night for years. This figure was difficult to ascertain: The gas mammoth has no solid surface so there are no landmarks to track as the planet turns. What's more, a magnetic field makes the rate of rotation hard to see. What to do? Presently NASA researchers have utilized information from the Cassini spacecraft to pin down an answer and solve the puzzle: A day on Saturn is ten hours, 33 minutes, and 38 seconds in length. The new day length of 10:33:38 is to some degree shorter than past evaluations, for example, the 10:39:22 estimation from 1981 dependent on magnetic field information from Voyager. The new figure was determined by seeing Saturn's rings, about which Cassini accum...