Energy huge imbalance detected on Saturn

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21-06-2024, 18:28

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INA - SOURCES

Scientists have found that the ringed planet sports a massive, seasonal energy imbalance across its globe. The discovery marks a turning point in our understanding of weather and climate on gas giant planets, their long-term evolution, and the ongoing changes.

"This is the first time that a global energy imbalance on a seasonal scale has been observed on a gas giant," says physicist Liming Li of the University of Houston. "Not only does this give us new insight into the formation and evolution of planets, but it also changes the way we should think about planetary and atmospheric science."

The powerful light of the Sun streaming throughout the Solar System imbues everything it hits with energy. Energy is also lost by planets in the form of cooling, radiating out into space primarily in the form of thermal radiation.

In the case of gas giant planets, including Saturn, there's also an energy source churning away deep inside which affects the planet's climate from within.

A team led by atmospheric scientist Xinyue Wang of the University of Houston was studying Cassini data on Saturn to examine its brightness when they noticed something interesting. The difference between how much energy it absorbs compared to how much energy it emits can vary by up to 16 percent, with fluctuations that align with the planet's seasons.

This, the researchers found on closer inspection, has to do with how far Saturn is from the Sun at any given time. Saturn's orbit isn't perfectly circular; it's actually elliptical – a property called eccentricity – leading to a distance variation of nearly 20 percent between its closest distance to the Sun and its farthest.