Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Saturn’s Moon Mimas Creates Clumps in the Ring System


The ring’s outside edge is influenced by meddling moon Mimas, which orbits the planet once for every two circuits the icy ring particles complete.

These periodic gravity perturbations are thought to compress the ring particles into clumps, while maintaining the ring’s well-defined outer edge.

Beyond the B-ring lies the Huygens gap, the widest dark void visible in this image, punctuated only by the bright Huygens ringlet. The 4800 km-wide Cassini Division separates the B-ring from the outermost A-ring, but itself is marked out with faint, concentric strands of ring material .... http://beforeitsnews.com



When seen from certain angles, Mimas closely resembles the Death Star, a fictional space station known from the film Star Wars . This is purely coincidental, as the first film was made nearly three years before the first close-up photographs of Mimas were taken. (Wikipedia)