Surprise! Icy 'rain' from Saturn's rings is heating the gas giant's atmosphere

This composite image shows the Saturn Lyman-alpha bulge, an emission from hydrogen that is a persistent and unexpected excess detected by three distinct NASA missions, namely Voyager 1, Cassini, and the Hubble Space Telescope between 1980 and 2017.  (Image credit: NASA, ESA, Lotfi Ben-Jaffel (IAP & LPL))

Icy "rain" from Saturn's rings is heating the gas giant's atmosphere, a phenomenon never seen in the solar system before, a new study suggests. 

The unexpected discovery, which came as the result of examining data collected from various space missions including NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, the retired Cassini probe and the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft, could help researchers predict if exoplanets have ring systems.