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The rings of Saturn are the most extensive and complex ring system of any planet in the Solar System. They consist of countless small particles, ranging in size from micrometers to meters, [1] that orbit around Saturn. The ring particles are made almost entirely of water ice, with a trace component of rocky material.
Ring system. The moons Prometheus (right) and Pandora (left) orbit just inside and outside, respectively, the F ring of Saturn, but only Prometheus is thought to function as a shepherd moon. A ring system is a disc or torus orbiting an astronomical object that is composed of solid material such as gas, dust, meteoroids, planetoids or moonlets ...
The rings of Saturn are made up of objects ranging in size from microscopic to moonlets hundreds of meters across, each in its own orbit around Saturn. [11] Thus an absolute number of Saturnian moons cannot be given, because there is no consensus on a boundary between the countless small unnamed objects that form Saturn's ring system and the ...
Rachel Reeves. January 28, 2017 at 7:30 PM. By Nick Cardona, Buzz60. The mysterious depths of space can now be seen in breathtaking clarity! NASA released up-close images of Saturn's rings. NASA's ...
Cassini–Huygens (/ kəˈsiːniˈhɔɪɡənz / kə-SEE-nee HOY-gənz), commonly called Cassini, was a space-research mission by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) to send a space probe to study the planet Saturn and its system, including its rings and natural satellites. The Flagship -class robotic ...
Saturn's atmosphere exhibits a banded pattern similar to Jupiter's, but Saturn's bands are much fainter and are much wider near the equator. The nomenclature used to describe these bands is the same as on Jupiter. Saturn's finer cloud patterns were not observed until the flybys of the Voyager spacecraft during the 1980s.
Pan is the innermost named moon of Saturn. [ 4 ] It is a small, ravioli [ 5 ] -shaped moon approximately 35 kilometres across and 23 km wide that orbits within the Encke Gap in Saturn's A Ring. Pan is a ring shepherd and is responsible for keeping the Encke Gap free of ring particles. It is sometimes described as having the appearance of a walnut.
Astronomers have noticed unusual movement in Saturn's rings. Here's the discovery in layman's terms: Generally, the ice and rocks that make up the rings travel outwards because of the ...