Solar Eclipse Reveals New Information About Saturn's Ring System [Study]

The rings of Saturn absorb different amounts of light, which affect their transparency. Researchers test this using fake eclipses.

Fake Eclipses To Test Saturn's Rings

Saturn has the most extensive ring system in the Solar System. A new study collected data during solar eclipses to see how much light the rings absorb.

The researchers used fake eclipses, which were brought by the Cassini spacecraft's motion when it was in the shadow of the rings and the Sun was eclipsed by Saturn.

Cassini's instruments saw far less sunlight while it was under the shade of the rings, and, from its perspective, Saturn had eclipsed the Sun. Scientists could quantify the transparency of Saturn's rings by measuring the light that the rings absorb.

Electrons are released by light striking a surface, in this case, the metal that Cassini and its equipment were built of. The term "photoelectric effect" refers to this. The Langmuir probe aboard Cassini's spacecraft, which was used to measure charged particles surrounding Saturn, suffered this fate.

George Xystouris, a PhD student at Lancaster University, said they focused on data variation and realized they were linked with how much sunlight each ring allowed to pass. The team determined the optical depth of Saturn's rings and the change in photoelectrons number for each ring by using the Langmuir Probe's characteristics and the Sun's brightness in the planet's vicinity, according to Xystouris.

High-resolution pictures of the rings corroborated the findings, which show how much light the rings absorb.

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Saturn's Ring System

Saturn's rings are a massive, intricate structure. The sixth planet's ring system could not possibly fit in the space between Earth and the Moon from edge to edge. The labels for the seven primary rings correspond to the sequence in which they were found. They are D, C, B, A, F, G, and E, counting outward from the planet.

The faintest and nearest ring to Saturn is the D ring. A, B, and C are the three primary rings. The A ring is the outermost ring and is visible with Earth-based telescopes.

The most considerable void between the rings, the Cassini Division, divides the A and B rings. The tiny moons Pandora and Prometheus guide the thin F ring just outside the A ring.

G and E, two considerably fainter rings, are located beyond that. The diffuse E ring of Saturn, which stretches from Mimas' orbit to Titan's orbit over a distance of almost one million kilometers (621,370 miles), is the largest planetary ring in our solar system.

Saturn's rings are little more than 400 million years old and will vanish in roughly 100 million years due to being drawn inside the planet by its gravity, per NASA. They will, however, become harder to see shortly.

Saturn takes 29 years to complete one circuit around the Sun, during which the rings appear to open and close, affecting Earth's view of the planet.

The rings are already getting more challenging to see, and by 2025, they will be tipped such that they are almost entirely obscured from Earth's perspective. After that, they will tilt back toward Earth, where they will be visible and brighter until 2032.