Something odd is happening inside Saturn

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Something Weird Is Going On Inside Saturn
Something Weird Is Going On Inside Saturn



We may have found water on Mars, but something far stranger is happening inside Saturn.

Astronomers have noticed unusual movement in Saturn's rings. Here's the discovery in layman's terms: Generally, the ice and rocks that make up the rings travel outwards because of the gravitational pull -- but for some reason the debris seems to be moving towards the center of planet, leading scientists to believe something is moving deep within the gas giant. The astronomers speculate an object far beneath the surface is spinning at a speed of one rotation every seven hours.

Scientists hope by studying the movement of the rings, they'll be able to determine what's going on inside the planet.

"Even dropping a probe into the atmosphere would not necessarily help a lot, because the probe will only get down to a pressure of five or 10 atmospheres before it gets cooked or squashed,"the planetary scientist leading the analysis told Space.com. "We need to go much deeper to understand this."

Most scientists believed Saturn was pretty uniform, but they're learning it's actually a much more complicated planet.

Can't get enough space? Check out these pics from NASA:

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