Scientists Spot Tsunamis In Saturn's Rings

        Artist illustration of Saturn's rings

Enormous mile-high tsunamis of icy particles are moving around one of Saturn's  rings, researchers say. The waves are created by one of Saturns moons, Titan, whose gravitational pulls yanks particles of Saturn inner C ring upward , creating huge peaks and gaps.

"It's a little bit like a tsunami propagating away from an earthquake," Philip Nicholson of Cornell University  said, according to National Geographic.

The graphic above shows an angled  view of a newly discovered  "crack" in one of Saturn's rings , known as the C ring. Scientists have long been puzzled by the gaps that can be seen in Saturn's C ring . Some appear to be occupied by small moons that move through the ring and disrupt it. Other's seem to have no connection to a moon . What's more , the gaps seemed to change size , and even vanish periodically. "It's become an increasing mystery, as to what determines where these gaps are in  the rings  and what  keeps the gaps open," Nicholson said.

The breakthrough came  when observers began to consider the ring in three dimensions. Then they realized that there were peaks in the C ring. Seen from different angles , these peaks could distort or even completely obscure  the gaps," explaining the gaps tendency to change shape and vanish from view.

Our future is among the stars, not on earth with all our petty squabbles and territorial despots. The planet is getting too small to contain so many tyrants and so much pollution. There's another Garden of Eden out there somewhere. Here's hoping we don't find it and proceed to destroy it as we have done with our own.

Keep looking up ...we are learning new things almost daily about our origins and our universe ...Maybe we  will meet some other explorers out there...Are we ready for that? I think not.