Cassini Finds Patterns and Rhythm in Saturn’s Rings

Cassini has been orbiting around Saturn for almost four years, and amazingly, the spacecraft keeps discovering new and unexpected features about this world and its system of rings and moons. Recently, in two of Saturn’s rings, Cassini found orderly lines of densely grouped, boulder-size icy particles that extend outward across the rings like ripples from a rock dropped in a calm pond. Surprisingly, the distances between these ring particles stay relatively equal even though their velocities may change. This type of pattern is completely new, as normally, the distances between particles change with their velocity.
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Filed Under: Astronomy • Contributors