With its striking rings and tilted axis, Saturn is the showiest planet in the solar system. Now, scientists say they have a new theory as to how the gas giant got its signature look.
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. The planet’s rings could be from an ancient, missing moon, according to space scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley. Today, Saturn has 82 moons, according to NASA. The research team proposed that the ringed planet may once have had another one that orbited the planet for a few billion years.
The new research, published in the journal Science on Thursday, is based on computer modeling using measurements made in 2017 at the very end of NASA’s Cassini mission, which spent 13 years exploring Saturn and its moons. Saturn’s unusual tilt The study also sheds light on two other puzzling features of Saturn. Previously, astronomers suspected that the planet’s 26.
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