“Discovering New Worlds
The passage talks about the importance of understanding the value of things in life. It’s essential to realize how much a person can achieve by applying effort and dedication. One should look for opportunities where they can learn, grow and become something greater than what they already are. Taking risks and taking on difficult challenges can be scary but also incredibly rewarding. The key takeaway from this passage is to not be afraid of trying out new things and putting yourself out there; you never know what great experiences life can bring if you push yourself out of your comfort zone.
Saturn is famous for its colorful rings. But, now astronomers have discovered that these rings aren’t as calm and calming as they appear. The ice particles from the rings are actually raining down into Saturn’s atmosphere, which is heating up the planet’s upper layer. To come to this conclusion, scientists used forty years of data from four different NASA missions and observations through a powerful telescope. These new findings might be used to figure out what kinds of rings other planets have – even if we can’t see them directly with our eyes. Ultraviolet light will help us study the faraway planets and tell us what kind of rings they may have.
Uncovering the Mystery of Saturn’s Rings
For 40 years, a secret has been right in front of us. But it took an experienced astronomer to figure out what it was in a matter of one year by studying observations made with the help of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, Cassini probe, Voyager 1 and 2 crafts, and the International Ultraviolet Explorer mission that’s not being used anymore.
A new and exciting thing has been discovered. Scientists have found out that the giant rings around Saturn are making its upper atmosphere warmer! This is something no one had ever seen in our Solar System before. This finding could help us figure out whether planets orbiting other stars also have beautiful, Saturn-like rings.
We can detect a problem in Saturn’s atmosphere because we see an extra amount of ultraviolet radiation. This radiation looks like a line of hot hydrogen, showing that something is polluting and heating the upper atmosphere from outside.
It’s likely that tiny icy particles from Saturn’s rings are providing a lot of heat to the planet. They could be coming from meteorites, solar energy, ultraviolet radiation or charged dust that’s being dragged in by Saturn’s gravity and when NASA sent their Cassini probe into Saturn’s atmosphere back in 2017, they confirmed lots of these particles were coming down from the rings.
Scientists from the Institute of Astrophysics in Paris and Lunar & Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona have recently discovered something exciting. They found out that Saturn’s rings are causing some changes in its atmosphere. This information was collected by a special spacecraft called Cassini Probe, but they didn’t know until now about the details regarding atomic hydrogen content. The research paper was released on March 30th in the Planetary Science Journal.
“Something called ring particles fall from the sky at certain places and when they hit air molecules, it heats up that part of the atmosphere,” said Ben-Jaffel. “This lets us know something is changing its composition.”
In order to reach his conclusion, Ben-Jaffel collected data on Saturn’s atmosphere from four different space missions. This included the two NASA Voyager spacecrafts that flew by Saturn in the 1980s and measured an extra UV light. The Cassini mission also got some UV readings when it visited the planet in 2004. Additionally, information was provided by Hubble and a joint venture between NASA, European Space Agency, and UK’s Science & Engineering Research Council called International Ultraviolet Explorer or IUE.
But people had to figure out if the information they found was real, or just an illusion caused by Saturn.
To put the jigsaw puzzle together, Ben-Jaffel used information from a scientific telescope called the Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS). This was to help measure Saturn accurately to be compared with other data collected by four other space missions. He then looked into all the light collected by these various instruments and space missions to compare them to what he saw through STIS’ observation of Saturn.
We wanted to see if the same kind of energy was being sent out by the atmosphere over time, and after we compared all the data, it actually looked like it was! We were using information from Hubble to help us measure it; nobody expected that. After plotting all the light information together, we were really surprised – it was exactly the same!
Astronomers examined forty years of data about ultraviolet radiation from the Sun to learn more about how it affects Saturn. After carefully looking at all the information and adjusting for differences, they discovered that the amount of UV radiation stayed the same no matter where on Saturn you go. This means that something else like rain from Saturn’s rings must be responsible for changes in the atmosphere.
Scientists want to see if they can figure out how different atmospheres on far-away planets work. This research is called the search for ‘exo-rings’, and it includes looking at what effects rings have on the atmosphere of a planet. We are just starting to learn about this, but hopefully soon we’ll be able to better understand atmospheres from far away worlds.
A group of scientists named Lotfi Ben-Jaffel, Julianne I. Moses, Robert A. West, Klaus-Michael Aye, Eric T. Bradley, John T. Clarke, Jay B. Holberg and Gilda E. Ballester recently published a study in a scientific journal called Planetary Science Journal about the mysterious abundance of atomic hydrogen in Saturn’s upper atmosphere on March 30th 2023. This study was given an identification number called DOI: 10.3847/PSJ/acaf78 so it can be easily found later on.
The Hubble Space Telescope is an international project with NASA and ESA. It’s managed from the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, which also runs the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). STScI is operated by a big group called the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy located in DC.
1. In rd12 mice, the short wavelength cone cells slowly start to not work as well.
2. After a operation using a special light treatment and collagen, rabbits have stronger scleras which help keep them safe.
3. Human lens epithelial cells need a certain protein that is targeted by an activating transcription factor 4 pathway in order to avoid apoptosis.
4. Bevacizumab has been found to help reduce corneal neovascularization (extra blood vessels) and scarring from herpes simplex keratitis in mice.
1. A program is being developed to help people in Ghana’s Upper West Region with a condition called “lymphedema” take better care of themselves.
2. Scientists looked back over 20 years to study the location of a skin disease called “leprosy” in Bangladesh.
3. Researchers studied how prevalent, and where, an infection called “echinococcosis” was among different townships in China.
4. People in Ituri Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo have a bad case of schistosomiasis.
5. In Africa, there is a way to both prevent malaria and fight COVID-19 at the same time.
