Image: Prometheus sculpts Saturn's F ring

Image: Prometheus sculpts Saturn's F ring
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Saturn's moons create art on the canvas of Saturn's rings with gravity as their tool. Here Prometheus is seen sculpting the F ring while Daphnis (too small to discern in this image) raises waves on the edges of the Keeler gap.

Prometheus (53 miles, or 86 kilometers across) is just above image center while Daphnis (5 miles, or 8 kilometers across), although too small to see in its location in the Keeler gap just to the right of center, can be located by the waves it creates on the edges of the gap. Prometheus and have been brightened by a factor of 2 relative to the rest of the image to enhance their visibility. There are 20 stars visible in this image.

This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 53 degrees below the ringplane. The image was taken in with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Aug. 25, 2013.

The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.2 million miles (1.9 million kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 111 degrees. Image scale is 7 miles (11 kilometers) per pixel.

More information: For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at ciclops.org .

Provided by NASA

Citation: Image: Prometheus sculpts Saturn's F ring (2013, December 18) retrieved 25 April 2024 from https://phys.org/news/2013-12-image-prometheus-sculpts-saturn.html
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