Thunderstorms Could be the Cause for Saturn's Spokes
12/14/2006
earthtimes.org
(Additional comments below)BERLIN: The spokes that come
and go on Saturn's rings could be the result of thunderstorms in the planet,
according to German researchers.
If this perception is correct, the lightning that strikes Saturn could be
several thousand times stronger than the thunderstorms that strike Earth and the
impact could be that beams of electrons are released from the planet's surface
to fall into the rings to create electrically charged dust that is seen as the
spokes.
Geraint Jones of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in
Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany and his team say the idea appears to be plausible as
it fits with the effects of thunderstorms on Earth.
Besides, the theory that the spokes could be the result of strikes by meteorites
cannot hold as several meteorites cannot be expected to strike the rings at the
same place in close succession, they say.
The team's contention still remains in theory as there is no proof of
storm-induced electron beams on Saturn. According to the publication Nature, the
spokes are transient, building up over a period of a few hours and disappearing
several hours later.
The spokes were first identified by the Voyager I and II spacecraft as they
passed close to the planet in 1980 and 1981. They appear as bright or dark
streaks several kilometers wide and thousands of kilometers long that cross the
rings. They are not present always.
For example, when NASA's Cassini spacecraft first viewed the planet, these were
not there. However, when the spacecraft took pictures of the planet in September
2005, they were present.
While researchers strongly feel this spokes could be made of electrically
charged dust grains, they are not sure how these were caused. One of the
theories is that meteorites hit the rings and create a cloud of charged plasma,
which then charges up the rings' dust particles.
Jones says this cannot be the case as the spokes build up gradually and several
meteorites cannot be expected to strike the rings at the same time and at the
same place. He says thunderstorms could be the case as thunderstorms on Earth
are found to generate electron beams. Saturn is known to experience
thunderstorms.
The details of the possibilities propounded by Jones and his team appear in the
journal Geophysical Research.
Original article
here
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From our TPOD
Saturn's Spokes:
The Electric Universe may explain this
mystery. The spokes are caused by radial discharges from Saturn¹s
magnetosphere into the planet¹s ionosphere. Such low-latitude discharges are
observed in the laboratory when a magnetized sphere is immersed in an
electrified plasma. In Saturn¹s case, the rings provide a more easily
ionized, "dusty" plasma that would tend to concentrate the discharges in the
plane of the rings. The effect on the ring particles is to temporarily alter
their polarization and to move them out of the plane of ring. This change in
optical properties causes the "spokes" to appear.