NASA has used its Cassini-Huygens spacecraft to detect for the first time meteors colliding with rings of the planet Saturn. The detection from Cassini-Huygens makes Saturn's rings the only place other than Earth, the moon and Jupiter where such impacts have been visible as they are taking place.
Researchers used Cassini-Huygens to detect meteor impacts in 2005, 2009 and 2012. 2009 was the best year because of the angle of the sun, which caused the debris clouds to appear brighter. The meteors that impact Saturn range in size from a half inch to several yards.
The study of Saturn's rings allows researchers to better understand a number of the planet's features, from its interior structure to the orbits of its moons. Discoveries such as those from Cassini-Huygens also hold implications for planetary system formation within the solar system. The discovery from the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft also holds clues to the age of Saturn's rings.
"Saturn's rings are unusually bright and clean, leading some to suggest that the rings are actually much younger than Saturn," interdisciplinary scientist for the Cassini mission at the NASA Ames Research Center Jeff Cuzzi said. "To assess this dramatic claim, we must know more about the rate at which outside material is bombarding the rings. This latest analysis helps fill in that story with detection of impactors of a size that we weren't previously able to detect directly."
The new findings revealed by the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft are published in the journal Science.
