Sheperd Moon Options

[Sunspot]

Lots of stunning new images from Casini pouring in, this one in particular caught my eye. At first I thought the object near the ring could have been an artefact/cosmic ray etc, but it appear to be attached to the rings by a faint straind of material, very strange indeed - the moon Prometheus or Pandora? I vaguely remember the science team talking about a similar phenomena observed in images returned during the July orbit insertion.

heres a shot from the wide angle camera, you can just make out a smal spot in the same location in the F Ring.

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=26515

[akuo]

That really is an amazing picture.

We've seen the F ring and those "spokes" visible in previous pictures too. Could it be that the moon drags material out of the ring? Seems that there are two spokes right of the moon at even intervals, but none to the left.

[Pando]

Wow, this has got to be one of the most incredible images I've seen so far from Cassini...

It does look like the moon's gravity is disturbing the material in the rings. The spokes are probably related to the moon's rotation itself, it's probably tumbling about slowly and disturbing it at a regular interval.

Man, if we could only see moving images of this thing...

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

That's definitely Prometheus -- it's on the inside of the F Ring, and its elongated spindle shape is unmistakable. There's already been one photo (taken soon after orbital insertion) showing a trail of material stretching from the F Ring to Prometheus -- are we perhaps seeing a two-way exchange of material along it to and from Prometheus? Curiouser and curiouser. Who'd a'thunk something as basically simple as Newton's laws of gravity and inertia could mathematically generate such incredibly complex and strange patterns?