this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2025
128 points (100.0% liked)

Space

7644 readers
152 users here now

News and findings about our cosmos.

Subcommunity of Science

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
alyaza@beehaw.org
Gaywallet@beehaw.org
wintrparkgrl@beehaw.org
remington@beehaw.org
128
A Tiny Moon Creating Giant Waves in Saturn’s Rings (i.redd.it)
submitted 17 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) by ooli3@sopuli.xyz to c/space@beehaw.org
13 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Daphnis, a small moon of Saturn, orbits within the Keeler Gap and exerts a noticeable gravitational pull on Saturn’s rings. This effect creates striking wave-like patterns along the ring edges, offering a visual glimpse into gravitational interactions in planetary systems.

Source: NASA : https://science.nasa.gov/saturn/moons/daphnis/

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] TachyonTele@piefed.social 30 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (3 children)

Here's one taken from visable light:
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Daphnis_edge_wave_shadows.jpg#mw-jump-to-license

(Sorry i haven't figured out how put an image i to a comment on piefed yet)

Daphnis, 8 kilometers (5 miles) across, occupies an inclined orbit within the 42-kilometer (26-mile) wide Keeler Gap in Saturn's outer A ring.

Measurements of the shadows in this and other images indicate that the vertical structures range between one-half to 1.5 kilometers tall (about one-third to one mile), making them as much as 150 times as high as the ring is thick. The main A, B and C rings are only about 10 meters (about 30 feet) thick. Daphnis itself can be seen casting a shadow onto the nearby ring.

This image of shadows on the rings and others like it (see PIA11656 and PIA11655) are only possible around the time of Saturn's equinox which occurs every half-Saturn-year (equivalent to about 15 Earth years).

[–] protist@mander.xyz 6 points 12 hours ago

This image of shadows on the rings and others like it (see PIA11656 and PIA11655) are only possible around the time of Saturn's equinox which occurs every half-Saturn-year (equivalent to about 15 Earth years). The illumination geometry that accompanies equinox lowers the sun's angle to the ringplane and causes out-of-plane structures to cast long shadows across the rings.

Super cool to read about this. Thanks for sharing

[–] Starfighter@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

What an incredible image.

I almost like it more than the artist rendition, even though it is way easier to understand/visualize.