0 comments While astronomers often rely on the gravitational pull of a planet to determine the size and makeup of its core, there are other ways to make those guesstimates. In the case of Saturn, for example, astronomers say they’ve detected waves in the planet’s rings that betray a planet core of ice and rocks; one that’s diffuse (or “fuzzy”), brimming with hydrogen and helium, and 55 times as massive as Earth. Science News reported on this latest look into Saturn’s core. A pair of scientists at Caltech, astronomer Christopher Mankovich and astrophysicist Jim Fuller, identified the waves in Saturn’s rings. The duo, who were aiming to ascertain the structure of Saturn’s core, compared gravitational models with the observed seismic measurements; using the latter to confirm which version of the former is most accurate.