* Astronomy

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RE: Saturn's F ring

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Spoiler

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has spotted mysterious objects creating trails in the rings that scientists are calling 'mini-jets'. Some of these objects travel in groups creating rippling swirls and eddies in the planet's strange ring. Credit: NASA / JPL

Blobrana · L

Cassini Sees Objects Blazing Trails in Saturn Ring

Scientists working with images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft have discovered strange kilometre-sized objects punching through parts of Saturn's F ring, leaving glittering trails behind them. These trails in the rings, which scientists are calling "mini-jets," fill in a missing link in our story of the curious behaviour of the F ring. The results will be presented tomorrow at the European Geosciences Union meeting in Vienna, Austria.

Blobrana · L

One of Saturn's rings is flaring and fading in a very strange fashion. When Voyager 1 visited the planet in 1980, the ring was faint, but it sparkled with bright spots. By the time the Cassini mission arrived in 2004, the spots were gone - but the ring as a whole had grown twice as bright.
The F ring has been a puzzle since it was discovered by the Pioneer 11 spacecraft in 1979. While most of the inner rings have clear, well-defined edges, the F ring, which is the outermost of Saturn's main rings, has a thin central core surrounded by a diffuse skirt of smoke-sized ice particles. That swirl of smoke forms kinks and knots, and some of it winds around the ring's core in a spiral.
Most of these funny features can be blamed on the little moon Prometheus, which orbits just inside the F ring.
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