Saturn Day Shorter Than Expected | Ken Croswell | Science

[CygnusX-1]

by Ken Croswell

Bad news for any slackers on Saturn: The days on the ringed planet are shorter than the number you'll find in most books--6 minutes briefer, to be exact. The faster spin drastically changes how scientists think Saturn's winds blow.

Full story: Science.

 

[phinds]

Interesting that a 6 minute change in day length results in an additional 400KPH at the equator and so has a significant impact on winds.

 

[Drakkith]

So shorts and sandals are out?

 

[phinds]

So shorts and sandals are out?

No, they're OK, just don't wear anything loose. Tight-fitting clothes with lots of lead weights in the pockets are the current style on Saturn.

 

[mfb]

Interesting. Equatorial bulge and rotation speed combined are a typical method to determine the interior structure of an object (see our Ceres thread). Reversing this approach means they need a good idea of the mass distribution inside ("using [...] possible internal density profiles").
It is nice to see that tracking the clouds gives similar results. I wonder why the old value - that apparently was known to be unreliable - was used then.