Saturn’s rings as a seismograph to probe Saturn’s internal structure. (arXiv:2007.12703v1 [astro-ph.EP])
<a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Mankovich_C/0/1/0/all/0/1">Christopher R. Mankovich</a>
As it has already done for Earth, the sun, and the stars, seismology has the
potential to radically change the way the interiors of giant planets are
studied. In a sequence of events foreseen by only a few, observations of
Saturn’s rings by the Cassini spacecraft have rapidly broken ground on giant
planet seismology. Gravity directly couples the planet’s normal mode
oscillations to the orbits of ring particles, generating spiral waves whose
frequencies encode Saturn’s internal structure and rotation. These modes have
revealed a stably stratified region near Saturn’s center, and provided a new
constraint on Saturn’s rotation.
As it has already done for Earth, the sun, and the stars, seismology has the
potential to radically change the way the interiors of giant planets are
studied. In a sequence of events foreseen by only a few, observations of
Saturn’s rings by the Cassini spacecraft have rapidly broken ground on giant
planet seismology. Gravity directly couples the planet’s normal mode
oscillations to the orbits of ring particles, generating spiral waves whose
frequencies encode Saturn’s internal structure and rotation. These modes have
revealed a stably stratified region near Saturn’s center, and provided a new
constraint on Saturn’s rotation.
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