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Mark Robert Showalter (born December 5, 1957) is a senior research scientist at the SETI Institute. [1] He is the discoverer of six moons and three planetary rings. He is the Principal Investigator of NASA's Planetary Data System Rings Node, a co-investigator on the Cassini–Huygens mission to Saturn, and works closely with the New Horizons mission to Pluto.
A failed photopolarimeter prevented Voyager 1 from observing Saturn's rings at the planned resolution; nevertheless, images from the spacecraft provided unprecedented detail of the ring system and revealed the existence of the G ring. [28] Voyager 2 ' s closest approach occurred in August 1981 at a distance of 41,000 km (25,000 mi). [27]
Name First appearance Year Media Fictional description Ref(s). Abafar Star Wars: The Clone Wars: 2012 TV series A desert planet located in the Outer Rim with a completely white surface.
Fainter planetary rings can form as a result of meteoroid impacts with moons orbiting around the planet or, in the case of Saturn's E-ring, the ejecta of cryovolcanic material. [6] [7] Ring systems may form around centaurs when they are tidally disrupted in a close encounter (within 0.4 to 0.8 times the Roche limit) with a giant
He discovered Saturn's biggest moon, Titan, and was the first to explain Saturn's strange appearance as due to "a thin, flat ring, nowhere touching, and inclined to the ecliptic." [10] In 1662 Huygens developed what is now called the Huygenian eyepiece, a telescope with two lenses to diminish the amount of dispersion. [11]
Peggy is the informal name for a former moonlet in the outermost part of Saturn's Ring A, orbiting 136,775 kilometres (84,988 mi) away from the planet. The moonlet was discovered by the Cassini Imaging Team in 2013 and it may likely be exiting Saturn's A Ring. [1] No direct image of Peggy has ever been made. [4]
A study published in the journal Science suggests a hypothetical moon (called Chrysalis) came too close to Saturn's gravitational pull and was torn apart, forming the planet's iconic rings.
In addition he discovered the Cassini Division in the rings of Saturn (1675). [7] He shares credit with Robert Hooke for the discovery of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter (ca. 1665). Around 1690, Cassini was the first to observe differential rotation within Jupiter's atmosphere.