A Lost Moon Could Finally Solve The Weird Mystery of Saturn And Its Rings

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A Lost Moon Could Finally Solve The Weird Mystery of Saturn And Its Rings
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Of all the rings in the Solar System, Saturn's are, inarguably, the most spectacular.

to Neptune have had a significant influence the ringed world's tilt. The rate at which Saturn wobbles on its rotational axis is very close to the rate at which Neptune's entire orbit wobbles , a phenomenon known as resonance, suggesting a relationship.

The new work, by a team led by astronomer Jack Wisdom of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found something odd, though. They used gravitational data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, and a model of the planet's interior structure, to see if Saturn is still in resonance with Neptune. The answer? Not quite.

The next step would be to figure out what could have changed Titan's orbit so dramatically. Well, there's something we know Saturn has a heck of a lot of: moons., it has the biggest known number of moons in the Solar System. If Saturn had an additional satellite that became destabilized, that could have altered the planet's precession and helped it escape its resonance with Neptune.

Specifically, the scenario proposes, the presence of Chrysalis could have caused Saturn to tilt to a greater degree than we see currently, around 36 degrees, through a resonance with Neptune. During this time, it would have had gravitational interactions with Titan.

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