New Look at Saturn’s Rings

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As the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft continues its exploration of Saturn and its moons, it seems every new transmission provides scientists with a fresh bounty of intergalactic marvels.

Today’s offering was no different, as the Cassini imaging team, led by Carolyn Porco, added a series of extraordinary new photos to the extensive collection of images that have been beamed back from the orbiter since it launched in 1997.

The images evince the ongoing scientific value of the Cassini mission, which was extended until this August in order to document Saturn’s equinox—the precise moment when the midday sun will be situated directly above the planet’s equator. As it awaits this event, Cassini has been busy searching the material lying above and below the plane of Saturn’s rings.

The new images reveal never-before-seen vertical structures that cut into the planet’s horizontal rings, which the researchers believe are a result of the gravity from Daphnis, one of Saturn’s moons, causing material in the rings to shift out of alignment.

If the researchers are correct, the images are striking proof that very small moons (smaller than previously hypothesized) have the capacity to alter the shape and verticality of Saturn’s rings. The Cassini imaging team is now turning its attention to discovering other ring-embedded moons.

As Porco stated in today’s press release, “it is one of those questions that have been nagging us since getting into orbit: ‘Why haven’t we yet seen a moon in every gap?’ We now think they may actually be there, only a lot smaller than we expected."

All photos by NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute