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Published 9 years ago by massani with 0 Comments

Ring Slicer: Saturn's moon Prometheus cuts into its F Ring

A stark contrast between the bright particles of Saturn's F Ring against the blackness of space. A beautiful photo taken by the Cassini spacecraft's narrow-angle camera on March 15, 2015.

  • Taken from NASA:

    Prometheus' (53 miles or 86 kilometers across) orbit sometimes takes it into the F ring. When it enters the ring, it leaves a gore where its gravitational influence clears out some of the smaller ring particles. Below Prometheus, the dark lanes interior to the F ring’s bright core provide examples of previous ring-moon interactions.

    This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 7 degrees below the ring plane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on March 15, 2015.

    The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 286,000 miles (461,000 kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 115 degrees. Image scale is 1.7 miles (2.8 kilometers) per pixel.

 
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