![]() ![]() The moons are in effect sweeping their particular orbit clean of particles. The tutu is comprised of particles that have accumulated onto the moons from the rings. With the exception of Epimetheus, the other moons all have a mysterious "skirt" around their equator, which resembles a ballerina's tutu. "This was kind of the final thing that - those of us that are interested in moons got - we got our present with a great big bow on the top." Moons of mysterious shape and colour may sweep the rings clean Images and data that were collected in this part of the Cassini mission were, as Buratti describes it, a parting gift from Cassini. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute) This montage of views from NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows three of the small, ring moons of Saturn and their tutu-like "skirts" inspected during close flybys: Atlas, Daphnis and Pan. ![]() In its final stages, Cassini was supposed to be looking at the rings, the planet and the magnetic field of Saturn, but when scientists noticed that the spacecraft would be so close to these five moons, they decided to include them as their focus of Cassini's final flybys. Daphnis was actually discovered by Cassini, and Pan was found in images taken by the Voyager spacecraft.Ĭassini observed these five moons in the final six orbits of its mission. Pan and Daphnis are found within the rings. In this position they help sculpt the rings. Pandora and Atlas skirt the main rings system of Saturn. Mysteriously, they switch places every four years. Those two moons, called "co-orbitals," were likely one body in the past before breaking apart. (NASA-JPL/Caltech)Įpimetheus actually shares an orbit with another moon, which is not one of the five. The rings and the moons depicted in this illustration are not to scale. Meet Saturn’s odd little moons that interact with its spectacular rings. The moons - all made of ice - each have an interesting role to play within the rings. The five moons observed by Cassini in order of proximity to Saturn are: Pan, Daphnis, Atlas, Pandora and Epimetheus. But many of those moons are odd ducks that are embedded within or close to the rings, that until recently, had not been well studied.īetween December of 2016 and April of 2017, the properties of those small moons were illuminated, thanks to data from the final orbits of NASA's Cassini spacecraft and it's looking like these moons and the rings are, according to researchers, "one and the same."īonnie Buratti, a planetary astronomer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who led this part of the Cassini mission, told Bob McDonald in an interview with Quirks & Quarks, that these moons are slowly sweeping up Saturn's rings. ![]() And with those rings and more than 60 moons it's also the most complex planetary system. Saturn is famous for its spectacular rings, which make it one of the most beautiful planets in our solar system. ![]()
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