Cassini data from last decade reveals insights into 'diffuse' nature of Saturn's core

New analysis of data from the Cassini space probe has revealed Saturn possesses a fuzzy or diffuse core without clearly defined boundaries. Scientists had until now figured that the sixth planet from the Sun has a metallic core surrounded by an envelope composed mostly of hydrogen and helium. A research team from California …

[Denarius]

odd

When a similar lower than expected core density for Jupiter was deduced from orbital probe data, the explanation was the core had been partly vapourised by a collision with an earth mass planet recently. Recent for astronomers that is.

[KittenHuffer]

Re: odd

"Earth mass planet" .... so not Shoemaker-Levy 9 then!

[bombastic bob]

Re: odd

"recent" in cosmic terms could even be "when the asteroid belt formed":

So Jupiter swallowed a rocky planet, and Saturn acts like a proto-star. Interesting.

gas giants being more like proto-stars and less like planets actually sounds VERY plausible.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: odd

TBH, that's exactly what I'd always assumed from the sciency/astronomical and SF I've read over the years. I just thought that was the accepted explanation and further science had/is confirming it. Maybe I was right, but for all the wrong reasons :-)

[Blergh]

It's quite big isn't it?

It's amazing just how big those gas giants are. I guess some/all of that rocky core is made up of all the asteroids (or even planets?) that it has eaten over it's lifetime. When it was said that the rocky core could reach out as far as 60% of it's radius, I thought "well could you send something down?". However it turns out that is still 23,000km of gas, and I don't suppose even if you could keep something working under that you probably wouldn't get any signal back out.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It's quite big isn't it?

[Saturn] is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to [Saturn]

[KittenHuffer]

To check their results ....

.... they'll have to study the tidal oscillations of the rings around Uranus!! Fnar fnar!

[bombastic bob]

Re: To check their results ....

because of that joke, they changed the planet's name to "U-rectum"

(ok that little 'Futurama' shout-out was screaming to be seen/heard)

(coat, please)

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol

Lol, 'Ring observers', good job they are talking about Saturn and not Uranus.

[Anonymous Coward]

Outstanding work!

My word, the subtle methods our boffins devise to extract more information out of data collected for an entirely different purpose never ceases to amaze me. Nice one!