SCI-News by Enrico de Lazaro Jun 17, 2019
Although NASA’s Cassini mission ended in 2017, science continues to flow from the data collected. In a series of papers in the journal Science, planetary researchers analyzed data from Cassini’s ring grazing orbits (December 2016 to April 2017) and its Grand Finale phase (April to September 2017). Key among the findings is the discovery that Saturn’s rings are relatively young, probably just 10-100 million years old.“Saturn’s rings are an accessible exemplar of astrophysical disk processes and a delicate tracer of the Saturn system’s dynamical processes and history,†said Cassini scientist Matt Tiscareno of the SETI Institute and colleagues.
“During its ring grazing orbits and Grand Finale, Cassini passed very close to Saturn’s main rings and obtained very high-spatial-resolution images, spectral scans, and temperature scans.â€
Dr. Tiscareno’s team analyzed those images and scans and discovered complex features sculpted by the gravitational interactions between Saturnian moons and ring particles.
“At the outer edge of the main rings, a series of similar impact-generated streaks in the F ring have the same length and orientation, showing that they were likely caused by a flock of impactors that all struck the ring at the same time,†the scientists said.
This shows that the ring is shaped by streams of material that orbit Saturn itself rather than, for instance, by cometary debris (moving around the Sun) that happens to crash into the rings.
“These new details of how the moons are sculpting the rings in various ways provide a window into the formation of the Solar System, where you also have disks evolving under the influence of masses embedded within them,†Dr. Tiscareno said.
A team led by Dr. Bonnie Buratti from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory analyzed Cassini observations of the five small moons located in and around Saturn’s rings.
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http://www.sci-news.com/space/saturns-ring-system-07295.html
