Which is also the outer edge of the bright main rings. The Keeler gap is located aboutĢ50 kilometers (155 miles) inside the outer edge of the A ring, The images show the tiny object in the center of the Keeler gapĪnd the wavy patterns in the gap edges that are generated by the Measure of the moon's size and brightness. Later, an even closer view was obtained, which has allowed a Its climb to higher inclinations in orbit around Saturn. Lapse sequence of images taken on May 1, 2005, as Cassini began The moon, provisionally named S/2005 S1, was first seen in a time. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute. Image right: Cassini's confirmation that a small moon orbits within the Keeler gap in Saturn's rings is made all the more exciting by this image, in which the disk of the 7 kilometer-wide body (4-miles) is resolved for the first time. A new image and movie show the new moonĪnd the waves it raises in the surrounding ring material. Viewing, which began last month, the Cassini spacecraft hasĬonfirmed earlier suspicions of an unseen moon hidden in a gap in Original article on a spectacular kick-off to its first season of prime ring Choi on Twitter Follow us Facebook and Google+. Leleu, Jutzi and their colleague Martin Rubin, also of the University of Bern, detailed their findings online May 21 in the journal Nature Astronomy.įollow Charles Q. Considering the six inner moons Pan, Atlas, Prometheus, Pandora, Janus and Epimetheus, the first three display these features, while the others - Pandora, Janus and Epimetheus - have random shapes." "We found that 20 to 50 percent of the small moons should display either an equatorial ridge or an elongated shape, while the rest should have more random potato-like shapes," Leleu said. The computer simulations also revealed the special environment in which Saturn's inner moons exist that makes near-head-on collisions frequent. (Image credit: Adrien Leleu, Martin Jutzi and Martin Rubin/University of Bern) ![]() ![]() Saturn's large moon Iapetus as observed by the Cassini spacecraft (top), compared to a simulated moon formed by the head-on collision and merging of two bodies, each half the size of Iapetus. Mergers involving slightly more oblique impact angles resulted in elongated shapes resembling Prometheus. The computer simulations revealed that near-head-on collisions led to ravioli-like flattened objects with equatorial ridges, similar to the shapes of Pan and Atlas. "If that is the case and these bodies formed that way, it has important implications for formations of moons in general, because that the pyramidal scenario could be at the origin of most of the moons in the solar system," Leleu said. Instead, the researchers found that Saturn's inner moons likely formed through a series of collisions between tiny moonlets, known as the pyramidal regime formation scenario. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/University of Bern) Not only are they similar shapes, but the model suggests why Pan's and Atlas' ridges look different: The ridges are made from smooth material squeezed out from the middle during the merger. The strange small moons of Saturn, as imaged by the Cassini spacecraft (top), compared to moons created through simulated collisions.
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