Saturn's magnetic field is curiously warped, and one of its moons may be to blame

"A better understanding of Saturn's environment is especially urgent now as plans for our return to Saturn and its moon Enceladus start to be developed.

The team behind this research reached these findings when they examined six years of data regarding Saturn collected by the Cassini spacecraft, which orbited the gas giant between 2004 and 2017. The aim of this research was to discover where the magnetic field lines of Saturn start to curve back into the planet's poles, where they funnel charged particles down into the atmosphere, a point known as the "magnetic cusp.

The team found that Saturn's magnetic cusp is dragged to the right as seen from the sun. In terms of a clock face, Earth's magnetic cusp is at 12, while Saturn's is at 1 or 3. The discovery could be an important one for future spacecraft missions to the Saturnian system that aim to discover if its icy moon Enceladus is capable of supporting life in its global ocean.