Undertoad • Aug 9, 2009 6:05 pm
The Discover magazine Bad Astronomy blog says it far better than I could:
Deep in the outer realms of our solar system, well over a billion kilometers away, something bizarre happened at Saturn’s F ring.The blog entry goes on to be very excited, because it's not easy to explain the event. Why does the thing apparently drag so much of the ring along with it? Why is the drag brighter at the bottom?
I mean, seriously: what the hell happened here?
This is one of the latest pictures returned from the remarkable human achievement that is the Cassini spacecraft, a probe the size of a school bus that has been orbiting the ringed planet since 2004. It’s returned one incredible picture after another, and lately — as Saturn’s orbit has brought it to a point where the rings are nearly edge-on to the Sun — things have gotten not only spectacular but also really weird.
...
It’s not exactly clear what’s going on here, even in this slightly zoomed shot. But it looks for all the world - or worlds — like some small object on an inclined orbit has punched through Saturn’s narrow F ring, bursting out from underneath, and dragging behind it a wake of particles from the rings.
We don't know how often this sort of thing happens, because we haven't been watching all that long. I guess after it's all been analyzed, we'll have a clearer understanding of the rings. Who knew they were made of gelatin?