Until now, researchers have been unable to model how these deceptively simple tubular structures — called chemical gardens — work and the patterns and rules that govern their formation.

In a paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Florida State University researchers lay out a model that explains how these structures grow upward, form different shapes and how they go from a flexible, self-healing material to a more brittle one.

“In a materials context, it’s very interesting,” said FSU Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Oliver Steinbock. “They don’t grow like crystals. A crystal has nice sharp corners and grows atom layer by atom layer. And when a hole occurs in a chemical garden, it’s self-healing. These are really early steps in learning how to make materials that can reconfigure and repair themselves.”

Typically, chemical gardens form when metal salt particles are put in a silicate solution. The dissolving salt reacts with the solution to create a semipermeable membrane that ejects upward in the solution, creating a biological-looking structure, similar to coral.

Scientists observed chemical gardens for the first time in 1646 and for years have been fascinated with their interesting formations. The chemistry is related to the formation of hydrothermal vents and the corrosion of steel surfaces where insoluble tubes can form.

“People realized these were peculiar things,” Steinbock said. “They have a very long history in chemistry. It became more like a demonstration experiment, but in the past 10-20 years, scientists became interested in them again.”

Inspiration for the mathematical model developed by Steinbock, along with postdoctoral researcher Bruno Batista and graduate student Amari Morris, came from experiments that steadily injected a salt solution into a larger volume of silicate solution between two horizontal plates. These showed distinct growth modes and that the material starts off as stretchy, but as it ages, the material becomes more rigid and tends to break.

The confinement between two layers allowed the researchers to simulate a number of different shape patterns, some looking like flowers, hair, spirals and worms.

In their model, the researchers described how these patterns emerge over the course of the chemical garden’s development. Salt solutions can vary a lot in chemical makeup, but their model explains the universality in formation.

For example, the patterns can consist of loose particles, folded membranes, or self-extending filaments. The model also validated observations that fresh membranes expand in response to microbreaches, demonstrating the material’s self-healing capabilities.

“The good thing we got is we got into the essence of what is needed to describe the shape and growth of chemical gardens,” Batista said.

This image serves as context for an observing program that will test the telescope’s capacity to detect faint moons around the planet and its bright rings. Any newly discovered moons could help scientists put together a more complete picture of the current system of Saturn, as well as its past.

Methane gas absorbs almost all the sunlight falling on the atmosphere at this picture’s specific infrared wavelength (3.23 microns). As a result, Saturn’s familiar striped patterns aren’t visible because the methane-rich upper atmosphere blocks our view of the primary clouds. Instead, Saturn’s disk appears dark, and we see features associated with high-altitude stratospheric aerosols, including large, dark, and diffuse structures in Saturn’s northern hemisphere that don’t align with the planet’s lines of latitude. Interestingly, researchers previously spotted similar wave-like in early JWST NIRCam observations of Jupiter.

Unlike the atmosphere, Saturn’s rings lack methane, so at this infrared wavelength, they are no darker than usual and thus easily outshine the darkened planet. This new image of Saturn also reveals intricate details within the ring system, showcasing several of the planet’s moons like Dione, Enceladus, and Tethys.

“We are very pleased to see JWST produce this beautiful image, which is confirmation that our deeper scientific data also turned out well,” said Dr. Matthew Tiscareno, a senior research scientist at the SETI Institute who led the process of designing this observation. “We look forward to digging into the deep exposures to see what discoveries may await.”

Over the past few decades, missions like NASA’s Pioneer 11, Voyagers 1 and 2, the Cassini spacecraft and the Hubble Space Telescope have observed Saturn’s atmosphere and rings. The image captured by JWST is just a taste of what this observatory will uncover about Saturn in the coming years as scientists. This image is part of a suite of deeply exposed images where researchers hope to identify new ring structures and perhaps even new moons of Saturn.

Moving from the inner to the outer features of Saturn’s rings, we can observe the dark C ring, the bright B ring, the narrow and dark Cassini Division, and the medium-bright A ring with the dark Encke Gap near its outer edge. Additionally, off the outer edge of the A ring, we can see the narrow strand known as the F ring. The rings cast a shadow on the planet and vice versa, creating intriguing visual effects.

In-depth exposures not shown in this image will allow scientists to investigate Saturn’s fainter rings, including the thin G ring and diffuse E ring, which are not visible here. Saturn’s rings consist of an assortment of rocky and icy fragments, ranging in size from smaller than a grain of sand to as large as mountains on Earth. Recently, researchers used JWST to explore Enceladus and discovered a substantial plume emanating from the moon’s southern pole. This plume contains particles and copious amounts of water vapor, contributing to Saturn’s E ring.

Comparing the northern and southern poles of Saturn in this image, we can observe typical seasonal changes. It’s currently summertime in Saturn’s northern hemisphere, while the southern hemisphere emerges from winter darkness. However, the northern pole appears unusually dark, potentially due to an unknown seasonal process affecting polar aerosols. A faint brightening at the edge of Saturn’s disk might be attributed to high-altitude methane fluorescence or emission from the ionosphere’s trihydrogen ion (H₃+). Spectroscopy from JWST could help confirm these possibilities.