Video: Flying Objects Punch Through Saturnian Ring, Blazing Glittery Trails of Space Dust
Saturn's Weirdest Ring This montage shows various objects blasting through Saturn's F ring, leaving glittering trails of dust in their wakes. NASA/JPL-Caltech Scientists scrutinizing Cassini imagery have stumbled on a strange find - evidence of half-mile-sized snowballs perforating one of Saturn's rings, creating miniature contrail-like streams in the ring's shape. The pictures answer a mysterious question about the F ring, Saturn's oddest ring. Unlike some of the wider, stately rings, the narrow F band has lots of dynamic features, including channels, ripples and snowballs formed by the nearby tiny moon Prometheus. Scientists didn't know what happened to the snowballs after they were created, however, and assumed they were destroyed along the way. These trails paint a more complete picture, proving that some of the snowballs survive to wreak their own havoc on the ring structure. This in turn gives a clearer picture of the little moon's impacts on Saturn's rings. Along with answering...
Read the whole article on PopSci
More from PopSci
Related
- Cassini sees new objects blazing trails in Saturn ringTue, 24 Apr 2012, 14:22:32 EDT
- Cassini sees collisions of moonlets on Saturn's ringThu, 5 Jun 2008, 10:07:36 EDT
- Scientists discover a Saturn-like ring system eclipsing a sun-like starWed, 11 Jan 2012, 14:35:33 EST
- A long night falls over Saturn's ringsFri, 23 Oct 2009, 16:38:06 EDT
- Demise of large satellite may have led to the formation of Saturn’s rings and inner moonsSun, 12 Dec 2010, 13:36:03 EST