CICLOPS: Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for OPerationS
Sculptor and His Work

Sculptor and His Work
PIA 20483
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   Most planetary rings appear to be shaped, at least in part, by moons orbiting their planets, but nowhere is that more evident than in Saturn's F ring. Filled with kinks, jets, strands and gores, the F ring has been sculpted by its two neighboring moons Prometheus (seen here) and Pandora. Even more amazing is the fact that the moons remain hard at work reshaping the ring even today.

Prometheus (53 miles, or 86 kilometers across) shapes the F ring through consistent, repeated gravitational nudges and occasionally enters the ring itself (clearing out material and creating a "gore" feature, see PIA12785). Although the gravitational force of Prometheus is much smaller than that of Saturn, even small nudges can tweak the ring particles' orbits to create new patterns in the ring.

This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 12 degrees above the ring plane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Feb. 21 2016.

The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.4 million miles (2.3 million kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft or phase angle of 105 degrees. Image scale is 9 miles (14 kilometers) per pixel.

The Cassini Solstice Mission is a joint United States and European endeavor. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team consists of scientists from the US, England, France, and Germany. The imaging operations center and team lead (Dr. C. Porco) are based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini Solstice Mission visit http://ciclops.org, http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Released: May 16, 2016 (PIA 20483)
Image/Caption Information


Alliance Member Comments
NeKto (May 18, 2016 at 5:14 AM):
there are moments when the images of the rings look like the grooves in an old fashioned LP record. but the grooves keep changing. the music is different every day. i never get tired of it.