A mysterious disruption in Saturn’s outermost F ring suggests it may have been disturbed recently, according to Cassini imaging scientists.
This view looks toward the sunlit side of Saturn’s rings from about 15 degrees above the ring plane. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.
Most planetary rings appear to be shaped, at least in part, by moons orbiting their planets, but nowhere is that more evident than in Saturn’s F ring.
Filled with kinks, jets, strands and gores, the F ring has been sculpted by two of Saturn’s moons, Prometheus and Pandora, the so-called shepherd moons.
Even more amazing is the fact that the tiny moons remain hard at work reshaping the F ring even today.
The new feature was mostly likely not caused by Pandora which lurks nearby, at lower right.
More likely, it was created by the interaction of a tiny object embedded in the F ring itself and material in the core of the ring.
Planetary researchers sometimes refer to these features as ‘mini-jets.’
Because these bodies are small and embedded in the F ring itself, they are difficult to spot at the resolution available to Cassini.
Instead, their handiwork reveals their presence, and members of the Cassini science team use the robotic spacecraft to study these stealthy sculptors of the F ring.
This image was taken in visible light with Cassini’s Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) – narrow angle camera on April 8, 2016.
The view was acquired at a distance of about 1.4 million miles (2.2 million km) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 105 degrees.
