Strange New Objects Seen In Saturn's Rings

Every 15 Earth years, Saturn has its equinox — the time during which its rotational axis is perpendicular to the rays from the sun, so that the sun is always directly "overhead" of Saturn's equator. This is significant because Saturn's rings orbit over the equator, so during the equinox, light from the sun hits them edge-on. This means that any objects wider than the rings, or orbiting above or below them, cast long shadows and are much easier to see. For the first time, we're able to get detailed images of these objects, thanks to Cassini. A moonlet, perhaps 1,300 feet in diameter, has been discovered in the B-ring, and the Bad Astronomy blog points out another object that seems to be bursting through the F-ring. Quoting: "The upward-angled structure is definitely real, as witnessed by the shadow it's casting on the ring material to the lower left. And what's with the bright patch right where this object seems to have slammed into the rings? Did it shatter millions of icy particles, revealing their shinier interior material, making them brighter? Clearly, something awesome and amazing happened here.

Comments

Re:That's no moon

[FlyingSquidStudios]

Or maybe a monolith...

radial distance?

[N7DR]

I haven't been able to find a reference that states the precise radial location of this object. Does anyone here have that information?

The Voyager 2 photopolarimeter data from 1981 suggested the presence of a small object in Saturn's B ring at a radial distance of around 109,000 km.

It would be interesting to know whether this is confirmation of that object, 28 years later.

(I have a vested interest: I was the principal author on the Voyager paper: Icarus 54, 267 (1983).)

Re:radial distance?

[MartinSchou]

Obviously I haven't read that paper, nor any related papers on the subject ...

But wouldn't you expect to see pieces of the rings coalesces into larger objects (I'm guessing under the same forces that make planets) and then be destroyed by gravity continually?

TMA-3??

[spoonist]

Let me guess, it's about two kilometers long...

Shit!

[db32]

Haven't any of you read Footfall?! I for one welcome our new elephant overlords!

Re:Savages

[NoobixCube]

I have no problem buying food in Imperial units (not that I have to, since I'm in Australia), since it works out the same in the end. I even say I'm 6 feet tall, despite it being all metric here. I just can't stand Imperial units in a scientific context. Mythbusters get points of starting out metric in their early days, but they lose them again for presumably caving to producers who decided Americans were too stupid to know what a Newton is.