Stunning New Images of Saturn's Rings Reveal Millions of Moonlets

By Ana Verayo, | January 31, 2017

This image shows a region in Saturn's outer B ring.  (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)

This image shows a region in Saturn's outer B ring. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)

NASA has released the most stunning images of Saturn's majestic rings to date, revealing never before seen features including millions of "moonlets" hidden from view.

NASA's Saturn probe, Cassini, uses an ultra high-resolution onboard camera via the Imaging Science Subsystem Wide Angle that can resolve details on a scale of 550 meters or similar to a skyscraper. These new images reveal unprecedented details and features within the rings, including "propeller" structures so massive that it indicates the existence of a constellation of miniature moons, weaved inside the rings' structure.

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These rings are made of ice, dust, and rock material that can range in many sizes from tiny specks to boulder-sized ones to chunks as big as a house. These "propeller" structures are gaps within these rocky, dusty material that can extend thousands of miles across. Scientists suggest that these are created by the presence of moonlets, leaving debris behind.

 

More specifically, these moonlets can be as small as a house to as large as one kilometer in diameter. While the mini-moons are in orbit within the rings, they can clear the space around them, but they are not massive enough to clear away entirely Saturn's rings, as demonstrated by the moons Pan and Daphnis.

These new images also reveal grainy structures that are embedded within each ring, which astronomers call "straw." The presence of these straws indicates that some ring material were collected, but the mechanism behind this is still unknown.

According to Cassini imaging lead researcher, Carolyn Porco of the Space Science Institute in Colorado, after meticulously planning initial orbital insertion ring images, these new images are the most detailed views of Saturn's rings ever in the last 13 years.

The Cassini mission has been orbiting Saturn and observing the gas giant's rings for almost 13 years. The spacecraft is now in its ring grazing orbits and will continue until later this April.  

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