Saturn's satellites have air

US Cassini spacecraft detected Saturn's Dione satellite with a thin atmosphere and contains oxygen.

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National Geographic reported that Cassini had just taken a flight close to Saturn's Dione satellite . Based on the data sent by the ship, scientists concluded that Dione has an atmosphere.

If a satellite has no atmosphere, we can treat it as a giant sphere. Saturn's magnetic lines will not disturb when the satellite moves inside the magnetic field, because magnetic disturbances only occur when the satellite is capable of conducting electricity.

'The magnetic field is only perturbed when you have charged particles from a certain source, such as the atmosphere. Dione's atmosphere is strong enough to disturb Saturn's magnetic field , explains Sven Simon, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics and Meteorology at the University of Cologne in Germany.

Picture 1 of Saturn's satellites have air
Saturn's Dione satellite is made up primarily of ice.

With a diameter of 1,123km, Dione is the 15th largest satellite in the solar system. Scientists conjecture that it is made up primarily of ice and ice.

Dione is not big enough to hold a thick atmosphere like the globe. Our planet and other large planets possess gravity strong enough to prevent atmospheric particles from flying into space.

Dione's atmosphere does not have a strong gravitational force, so its gas molecules constantly lose.

So where is Dione's atmosphere born?

Saturn is surrounded by a belt of large charged particles. Dione is in that belt. So charged particles - with high temperatures and high movement speeds - constantly bombard Dione's surface.

When particles strike Dione, they break down water molecules in the ice on the surface of the satellite. That process releases gas molecules, creating an atmosphere.

Because Dione's atmosphere was discovered by Saturn's magnetic field data, scientists do not know what constitutes the atmosphere. They thought that because Dione's atmosphere was made up of ice, oxygen could be the majority of its volume.