So whilst finding out some information about Saturn’s orbiter Cassini, I came across this story: Cassini Catches Titan Naked in the Solar Wind. We’ve been talking a lot about magnetospheres when we discuss the giant worlds so this whole thing is really interesting!
Titan outside of a compressed Saturn magnetosphere. From NASAs Cassini page
The space probe Cassini was going by Titan in 2013 when a big solar storm hit Saturn’s magnetosphere and compressed it. This left Titan without the protection of that magnetosphere. According to the newly published data, Titan has no appreciable magnetosphere because particles interacted with its atmosphere just like the particles in the atmospheres of Venus and Mars (no magnetospheres due to not spinning fast enough and solid core, respectively). The scientists interviewed for the article talk about how this information shows them that computer models developed for closer worlds can still be used for worlds farther away and that’s awesome 🙂 I love the Universe 🙂
