New findings give Saturn a shorter day

摘要

A new way of detecting how fast large gaseous planets are rotating suggests Saturn's day lasts 10 hours, 34 minutes and 13 seconds - over five minutes shorter than previous estimates.Measuring the rotation of gas giants such as Saturn is difficult because the planet has no solid surface to use as a reference. Also, unlike Jupiter, Saturn's magnetic fields are aligned with its rotation axis so that their fluctuations do not give an accurate measure of the rotation of the planet's deep interior.