Saturn’s core is a slushy mix of rocks and liquid
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Using archival data from the Cassini orbiter that mapped ripples in the rings of Saturn, scientists have produced a model of Saturn’s core that suggests it is a slushy soup that as it sloshes about shifts the gas giant’s gravitational field.
By using the famous rings like a seismograph, scientists studied processes in the planet’s interior and determined that its core must be “fuzzy.” Instead of a solid sphere like Earth’s, the core of Saturn appears to consist of a ‘soup’ of rocks, ice and metallic fluids that slosh around and affect the planet’s gravity.
…Not only does the planet’s core seem sludgy, it also appears to extend across 60% of the planet’s diameter, making it much larger than previously estimated. The analysis showed that Saturn’s core might be about 55 times as massive as the entire planet Earth. Of the total mass of the core, 17 Earth masses are made of ice and rock, with the rest consisting of a hydrogen and helium-based fluid, the study suggests.
The image above was taken in 2017, and shows both a density wave in the rings (the parallel lines in the center) caused by a Saturn moon, and numerous “propellers”, small distortions in the rings caused by slightly larger objects.
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Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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Click for more information.
Using archival data from the Cassini orbiter that mapped ripples in the rings of Saturn, scientists have produced a model of Saturn’s core that suggests it is a slushy soup that as it sloshes about shifts the gas giant’s gravitational field.
By using the famous rings like a seismograph, scientists studied processes in the planet’s interior and determined that its core must be “fuzzy.” Instead of a solid sphere like Earth’s, the core of Saturn appears to consist of a ‘soup’ of rocks, ice and metallic fluids that slosh around and affect the planet’s gravity.
…Not only does the planet’s core seem sludgy, it also appears to extend across 60% of the planet’s diameter, making it much larger than previously estimated. The analysis showed that Saturn’s core might be about 55 times as massive as the entire planet Earth. Of the total mass of the core, 17 Earth masses are made of ice and rock, with the rest consisting of a hydrogen and helium-based fluid, the study suggests.
The image above was taken in 2017, and shows both a density wave in the rings (the parallel lines in the center) caused by a Saturn moon, and numerous “propellers”, small distortions in the rings caused by slightly larger objects.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
One of the more interesting presentations I saw at the 2018 APS confernce in Portland was a presentation on conductivity, and then superconductivity that’s induced in many types of matter under extreme (100 GPA+) pressures. The electron bubbles start to overlap, then certain transitions start taking place. Things like sulfur dioxide or sodium (my memory is swiss cheese so I may be wrong) can be made superconductive (briefly and precariously in diamond anvil cells.)
If thee were a way to somehow hold onto matter under 200 GPa -ish of pressure, we could have superconductors that operate at room temperature.
I think they’ve speculated in the past that Jupiter’s dynamo is due to metallic hydrogen – something else that they’ve managed to make (briefly and precariously, where it is nearly impossible to probe) in a diamond anvil cell. (Sudden reflectance characteristic of a plasma-frequency cutoff of free conductors, as in a metal.)
In Saturn’s case, some of the “metal” might not be metal – just matter forced into a conductive state.
My memory is swiss cheese – the induced superconductivity was at pressures even higher than diamond anvil cells can give you: They had to probe these states in devices that temporarily produced these pressures by detonating explosives. They might have called this stuff “Fermi Matter”, but – swiss cheese, sorry.
MadRocketSci,
You are correct, the metallic hydrogen is responsible for the dynamo on Jupiter. You only need three things to make a generator: a magnetic field, a conductive material, and movement of the two through each other. The hypothesis is the magnetic flux tube between Jupiter and Io is responsible for the volcanic forces on that moon (induction heating). That is a hell of a field!
It has been many years since I read anything about super conductivity and did not know this concept of diamond anvil cells. Thank you, I will read up on this concept.
At first when I read this article, I thought they were going to re-classify Saturn not as a gas-giant, but somewhere in-between a gas giant and an ice giant, due to increased size of the core and it’s contents.
I wonder if a Dyson Harrop set up would work here, and/or skyhook. Titan has hydrocarbon seas that I want. Suppose I filled one Starship with fuel and an empty one close enough for Saturns gravity to yank it down and yank hydrocarbon filled coresupport off Titans surface, like a fountaining chain that just keeps going? Once the chain is in between, the indivdual cell ship train cars burn just enough to slingshot to Earth….all components plastic also made from Titans hydrocarbon seas. I think giant versions of chain fountains and drinking birds conjoined with orbital mechanics/skyhooks will fuel space industry.