Home » Technology » Disclosed the great mystery of the solar system – Rambler / News

Disclosed the great mystery of the solar system – Rambler / News

news.rambler.ru" data-cluster-alias="tech" data-cluster-id="43974905" data-cluster-type="video" data-topic-id="172">

Astronomers have discovered why the upper atmosphere of giant planets such as Saturn and Jupiter are hot, although they are much farther from the Sun than the Earth. The heat source was one of the great mysteries of the solar system, which for a long time remained unsolved. The discovery is reported by Phys.org.

An analysis of the data obtained from the NASA Cassini spacecraft showed that the heating of the atmosphere of Saturn is due to the powerful aurora at the south and north poles of the planet. Electric currents caused by the interaction between the solar wind and charged particles cause the excitation of atoms and molecules in the air shell of the gas giant. Heat is then distributed by air currents throughout the planet.-

This mechanism helps to solve the problem of why the upper part of the atmosphere is so hot and the rest of the air shell remains cold, as expected due to the remoteness of Saturn from the Sun.

The temperature of the upper layers was measured by observing the refraction of light from bright stars in the constellations Orion and Big Dog at the boundary of Saturn’s atmosphere during the flight of Cassini. This made it possible to know the density of the air envelope, which decreases with height, but the rate of decrease depends on temperature. It turned out that the temperature reaches a maximum near the auroras.

Read also

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.