the season of the “rays” on the rings begins, a phenomenon still without explanation – Corriere.it

They were first seen by Voyager probes in the early eighties, since then their origin has not yet been fully explained. The many hypotheses that have been proposed have not found complete approval by the scientific community. These are the “rays” that periodically appear between the rings of Saturnparticularly in the B Ring. Sort of dark “spots” surely linked to the seasons of the planet along its orbit around the Sunbut the mechanism of formation has not yet been well explained.

Equinox

In recent days, the Hubble Space Telescope has noticed the first «spokes» (as they are called in English), corresponding to the equinox of Saturn, i.e. the period in which the length of day and night on the planet are equal, which signals the beginning of the new phase of the «rays». Each “season” on Saturn lasts about 7 years on Earth, the “rays” disappear at the summer and winter solstices. The autumnal equinox will be reached on May 6, 2025 for Saturn’s northern hemisphere, when the rays on the rings are expected to become more numerous and evident.

The hypothesis

According to the most accredited hypothesis, the “rays” are linked to the magnetic field of the planet, which interacts with the solar wind. Icy particles smaller than the size of a grain of dust, electrically charged, therefore move to the top of the rings, resulting in what appear as darker areas. These zones can be thousands of kilometers long and a hundred kilometers wide.