NASA JPL Cassini | 08 July 2010
An Analytic Parameterization of Self-Gravity Wakes in Saturn's Rings, with Application to Occultations and PropellersScientists using NASA's Cassini spacecraft at Saturn have stalked a new class of moons in the rings of Saturn that create distinctive propeller-shaped gaps in ring material. It marks the first time scientists have been able to track the orbits of individual objects in a debris disk. The research gives scientists an opportunity to time-travel back into the history of our solar system to reveal clues about disks around other stars in our universe that are too far away to observe directly.
"Observing the motions of these disk-embedded objects provides a rare opportunity to gauge how the planets grew from, and interacted with, the disk of material surrounding the early sun," said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team lead based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo., and a co-author on the paper. "It allows us a glimpse into how the solar system ended up looking the way it does."
The results are published in a new study in the July 8, 2010, issue of the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.
See related multimedia
Cassini Equinox Mission
CICLOPS
- The Astronomical Journal 139 492 (2010 Feb) doi: 10.1088/0004-6256/139/2/492