A new study tracks the "rain" of charged water
particles into the atmosphere of Saturn and finds there is more of it and it
falls across larger areas of the planet than previously thought. The study,
whose observations were funded by NASA and whose analysis was led by the
University of Leicester, England, reveals that the rain influences the
composition and temperature structure of parts of Saturn's upper atmosphere.
The paper appears in this week's issue of the journal Nature.
"Saturn is the first planet to show significant
interaction between its atmosphere and ring system," said James
O'Donoghue, the paper's lead author and a postgraduate researcher at Leicester.
"The main effect of ring rain is that it acts to 'quench' the ionosphere
of Saturn. In other words, this rain severely reduces the electron densities in
regions in which it falls."