Saturn's rings smudge: Caused by Lightning?

The Ringed Planet, as Saturn is sometimes called, has been usually photographed with smudges present on its rings. Scientists, for many years now, are looking for the reason behind the smudges. One possible reason that seems to logically explain this exciting phenomenon is lightning.

At the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, scientists led by Geraint Jones published a theory in Nature magazine that either massive lightning or meteor strikes are causing these smudges on Saturn's rings to appear and disappear.

Saturn’s rings mainly consist of ice and rock particles. These particles can be dust-like or as big as houses and are spaced far apart. There are several identified rings that encircle Saturn. Scientists have named the rings A, B, C, D, E, F AND G ring respectively.

The rings are observed to be separated by gaps produced by orbital resonances. The gaps are called Maxwell Gap, Huygens Gap and Keeler Gap, all named after the scientists who have discovered them.

The team of Jones stated in their report that if lightning is indeed causing these smudges then these lightning are quite massive and releases ten thousand times more energy compared to the lightning on Earth.

This tremendous amount of energy releases “beams of electrons that surge up from Saturn's surface to whack into the rings and blast out jets of electrically charged dust", according to Jones.

On the other hand, Jones and his team believe that it is also possible but not likely for the smudges to be caused by meteors hitting the rings. To be able to generate that much amount of energy, several meteors must hit the ring at the same place in very close succession.