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Unmanned Spaceflight.com > Outer Solar System > Saturn > Cassini Huygens > Cassini general discussion and science results
remcook
Is that a star or a moon? It doesn't look to be behind the rings, but maybe it's forward scattering. It's in roughly the same place all the time, but not on all images, so I don't think it's an artifact. Are they doing a stellar occultation of the rings? Sure looks pretty though!

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=84535
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=84536
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=84534
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=84531
etc.
volcanopele
Yep, that's for another stellar occultation of the rings. The star is Antares/Alpha Scorpii.
Sunspot
This is a weird shot:

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=84391

What might be going on here?
nprev
QUOTE (Sunspot @ Sep 27 2006, 03:40 PM) *
This is a weird shot:

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=84391

What might be going on here?



Looks like an F-ring kink from a passage of one of the herder moons...but not sure if that's in fact the F-ring.

EDIT: Just went to the site and yes, that does seem to be the F-ring up to its usual tricks.

One thing I find extremely interesting is how it seems to spread out, diffuse, & differentiate into distinct subrings in gravitationally/tidally "clear" zones. Why would it do this? huh.gif I can't imagine that differences in particle size alone would explain this behavior, unless Saturn's gravity gradient is steep enough to cause it.
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