I usually show NASA probe Cassini-Huygen's requisite "pretty pictures" of Saturn. Today, scientific discovery and intriguing speculation:
The rings of Saturn are part of a young and evolving system, according to the latest observations that suggest a snowball fight is going on around the giant planet. Portions of the rings, which are predominantly made of ice, may be only 10 to 100 million years old, which is a brief period of time compared to the four and a half billion-year-old solar system....Astronomers have long assumed Saturn's rings are composed of various-sized objects, from tiny frozen grains to mountain-sized chunks of ice and rock. The smashing of giant snowballs produces small grains of ice, the thinking goes. The increased surface area speeds up a process by which plasma particles — essentially superheated gas — zip along Saturn's magnetic field strip oxygen atoms from the ice.
...The same process that may be exposing the ice to the plasma may also be rejuvenating the rings. Evidence for this comes from the beautiful bands of colors in the rings.
Read the rest. And don't forget the pretty pictures, including a cutaway of moon Titan's atmosphere and a jaw-dropping portrait of mother and daughter.
