Saturn is renowned for its rings, easily visible through an ordinary telescope. Now, using observations collected over 40 years, scientists have discovered that the planet’s iconic rings may not be as calm as they look, uncovering a never-before-seen interaction between the planet and its iconic rings.

Scientists collated archival observations of Saturn to discover that the planet’s vast ring system is heating its upper atmosphere, a phenomenon that has not been seen anywhere in the solar system before.

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Arriving at this conclusion required piecing together ultraviolet (UV) light observations from four NASA planetary missions. This included data from the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft that flew by Saturn in the 1980s, measuring UV excess that, at the time, was considered noise, and the Cassini mission that arrived at Saturn in 2004 and collected UV data over several years. Additional data came from the International Ultraviolet Explorer, launched in 1978, and the Hubble Space Telescope.

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