I don’t understand the science behind this - from the New Yorker, in an article about Saturn’s “ring rain:”
“At times, ring particles take on an electrical charge (from the sun’s ultraviolet light, for instance). When this happens, they’re more susceptible to Saturn’s gravitational pull and can begin pelting into the planet’s atmosphere.” Does taking on an electrical charge confer more mass onto these particles? Dopers?
I see a paywalled New Yorker article, but does this NASA article cover the same topic?
If so, the New Yorker writer misread the original article badly. It’s not gravity, but the magnetic field that pulls the charged water particles into the ionosphere.
That’s what I thought.
The most charitable interpretation is that normally gravity isn’t strong enough to pull those particles in, but the addition of magnetic pull overcomes that, and down they come.
If that’s the intent, it’s poor writing.
I think that the author of the New Yorker article saw in the actual scientific source that the particles go down, and just assumed that any force that makes a particle go down is gravity.
Just thinking out loud: If the gravity is pulling in/on other charged particles such as from the solar wind or ‘where ever’, and those other solar wind or ‘where ever’ charged particles interact with these charged particles then it would be fair to say that yes these charged particles would be more susceptible to gravity.