Saturn<\/a> as one of the most beautiful planets of the solar system, but you should know that it\u2019s also one of the calmest. However, on July 5 of this year, around 9:00 a.m. UTC, a very bright light showed up on the planet for a few seconds.<\/p>\nHow was it possible to catch the light in just a few seconds? Was it thanks to highly advanced technology? Not really, it was thanks to an amateur astronomer called Mario Rana. Mario is part of a project called DeTeCt, and also a volunteer at NASA.<\/p>\n
The man behind the video was recording a video of Saturn with his telescope when he saw something strange on it: A flash of light that shouldn\u2019t have been there. It\u2019s true there wasn\u2019t much footage, but it was enough to catch scientists\u2019 attention around the world. Why? Because if the theory of something hitting Saturn is what happened, this would be the first time it\u2019s caught on camera. Prior to this, similar impacts were only seen in Jupiter.<\/p>\n
What could it be?<\/p>\n
There\u2019s nothing clear yet about what could cause that flash. However, the most possible idea is that an object from space hit Saturn, maybe a meteoroid or something bigger. However, it\u2019s important to know that Saturn is not like Earth or the Moon, it\u2019s a giant planet made of gas, mostly hydrogen and helium. This means that when something hits its atmosphere, it doesn\u2019t leave a crater nor visible mark, instead the object is destroyed immediately, swallowed by the clouds, and the planet\u2019s gas. So, it would basically disappear.<\/p>\n
Scientists estimate that small objects hit Saturn around 7 or 8 times a year, but it was never possible to see the exact moment of the impact. That\u2019s why Mario\u2019s video is so important!<\/p>\n
Not enough proof<\/p>\n
Obviously, Mario\u2019s video is very helpful, and it means an important contribution to the scientific field. However, to really confirm it was an impact, scientists need more evidence because it could be anything, from a camera error to an interference, or even a cosmic ray that appeared at that exact moment. What are scientists doing then? They are asking for help from other people who were observing Saturn the same day and at the same time Mario was recording the video.<\/p>\n
If they get someone who did this, it would be great to compare both images to know whether the flash of light was a real thing, where did it came from, and even estimate the size of the object that hit the planet.<\/p>\n
An historic moment got on camera<\/p>\n
Of course, the discovery is so important, but do you know what\u2019s another remarkable aspect about this? The fact that this discovery was made by someone who just loves the universe and decided to record Saturn at that moment. Now, powerful telescopes like the James Webb could join the search for more information to better understand what happened.<\/p>\n
As you can see, anyone can be part of a scientific discovery. So, who knows if you will discover something in the future?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first time in history\u2026 something strange happened on Saturn and someone recorded it! In the planet…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":116706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[159,783,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-116705","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114967280181147610","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}