February 28, 2005

2 min read

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Saturn Submits to a Planetary Paparazzo

By Kate Wong

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Nearly eight months after Cassini entered into orbit around Saturn, the spacecraft has amassed quite a collection of images of the ringed planet and its moons. A suite of articles published in the current Science discusses observations made thus far in the mission. Highlights from this grand tour follow below.

CRATER FACE
A close flyby of Phoebe, Saturn's outermost moon, revealed an ancient, pockmarked surface. The many craters are thought to have resulted from collisions with smaller objects. Twenty-four of the largest ones have been deemed conspicuous enough to receive names from the International Astronomical Union. Images obtained using the Cassini Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) also suggest that the tiny moon contains ice at shallow depths-perhaps just 300 to 500 meters below the darker surface material.

RING BLING
Saturn's rings have inspired wonder ever since Galileo first glimpsed them in 1610. Thanks to new observations, they are more alluring than ever. Images produced by the ISS have revealed new moons within the rings. They also indicate that diffuse rings populate gaps within the main rings. Up close and personal, the pictures even document the particle properties of the planet's lovely ornaments.

STORMY SKIES
It might look serene from Earth, but Saturn is a tempestuous place. Astronomers have long known that winds in the ringed planet's equatorial region rage at speeds approaching 10 times that of Earth's jet stream. The new findings show that these gusts change with altitude, with wind speeds decreasing with height. Energy transferred by convection from Saturn's interior appears to be fueling the cloud-level winds. Cassini has also pinpointed the source of powerful electrostatic discharges first documented by the Voyager spacecraft flybys more than 24 years ago. Scientists attributed the earlier lightning observations to unseen storm activity in the planet's equatorial region. Fresh evidence reveals that they are indeed one and the same. Why Saturn's lightning is so much more intense than Earth's remains a mystery, however.

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Kate Wong is an award-winning science writer and senior editor for features at Scientific American, where she has focused on evolution, ecology, anthropology, archaeology, paleontology and animal behavior. She is fascinated by human origins, which she has covered for nearly 30 years. Recently she has become obsessed with birds. Her reporting has taken her to caves in France and Croatia that Neandertals once called home to the shores of Kenya’s Lake Turkana in search of the oldest stone tools in the world, as well as to Madagascar on an expedition to unearth ancient mammals and dinosaurs, the icy waters of Antarctica, where humpback whales feast on krill, and a “Big Day” race around the state of Connecticut to find as many bird species as possible in 24 hours. Wong is co-author, with Donald Johanson, of Lucy’s Legacy: The Quest for Human Origins. She holds a bachelor of science degree in biological anthropology and zoology from the University of Michigan. Follow her on Bluesky @katewong.bsky.social

More by Kate Wong

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