Saturn's Rings are affecting the Planet's Weather

Saturn’s rings do more than just look pretty. New data from the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft orbiting the planet shows their shadow can actually change the planet’s atmosphere.

“One can imagine this as the grand finale phase of the Cassini mission as an entirely new mission with the veteran spacecraft,” William Kurth, a scientist at the University of Iowa’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, told Gizmodo. “There was never any plan to go this close to Saturn...we’re just getting our feet wet with the fresh data that we have.”

Scientists define the “surface” of Saturn, a gas giant, as the place where its pressure equals one bar—a little less than the average pressure at sea level, 60,268 kilometers (37,550 miles) from its center. The ionosphere begins around 300 kilometers (186 miles) up and goes way out to 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles) up. Earth’s ionosphere goes from 60 kilometers (37 miles) to 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) up and its radius is around 6,400 kilometers (3,980 miles), for comparison. This region is populated by particles that have been ionized, or become charged by losing electrons thanks to the Sun’s radiation.

https://gizmodo.com/shadows-from-saturns-rings-affect-the-planets-weather-1821191850