Saturn has a lopsided magnetic field, far different from the mostly even magnetosphere of Earth, new research suggests. The ringed gas giant's wonky magnetic shield may be the result of its rapid rotation (a day on Saturn lasts just 10.7 hours), and the effects of its moons, especially the icy ocean moon Enceladus.
The team behind this research reached these findings when they examined six years of data regarding Saturn collected by the Cassini spacecraft, which orbited the gas giant between 2004 and 2017. The aim of this research was to discover where the magnetic field lines of Saturn start to curve back into the planet’s poles, where they funnel charged particles down into the atmosphere, a point known as the "magnetic cusp."
