Saturn moon atlas full#
Phoebe rotates on its axis every nine hours, and it completes a full orbit around Saturn in about 18 Earth months. Now we have found something but, as is usual for the F ring, what we see is perplexing. Phoebe is roughly spherical and has a mean radius of about 66.2 miles (106.5 kilometers), about one-sixteenth the radius of Earths Moon. "We have planned many images to search the region between the A and F rings for diffuse material and new moons, which we have long expected to be there on the basis of the peculiar behaviour of the F ring. If the two objects turn out to be a single moon, it will bring the Saturn moon count to 34.Ĭassini team leader Professor Carolyn Porco at the Space Science Institute said: "If this is the same object, then it has an orbit that crosses the F ring, which makes it a strange object."Īs a result, the inner object sighted by Spitale is being considered a separate object, called S/2004 S 4. "When I went to look for additional images of this object to refine its orbit, I found that about five hours after first being sighted, it seemed to be orbiting interior to the F ring," said Spitale. While trying to pin down the moon's orbit, Joseph Spitale, a planetary scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, spied something odd. It's also not clear whether there are one or two objects. It's not clear whether the moon, named S/2004 S 3, actually is a moon or a clump of matter that will ultimately break apart, mission scientists said. Murray's group then calculated its orbit. It was an incredible privilege to be the first person to spot it," he said. "I noticed this barely detectable object skirting the outer part of the F ring. Murray also spied a small object orbiting at the edge of the F ring. It's not yet known whether it extends all the way around the planet. The ring is located 138,000 kilometres from the centre of Saturn in the orbit of the moon Atlas. "My immediate hunch was that it might be associated with the orbit of one of Saturn's moons, and after some calculation I identified Atlas as the prime suspect," he said. "It was while studying the F ring in these images that I discovered the faint ring of material," Murray told the British Association Festival of Science at the University of Exeter. The ring, which is about 300 kilometres wide, is between Saturn's A and F rings and has been given the name R/2004 S 1. Professor Carl Murray, from the University of London's Queen Mary college, first spotted the new ring, which lies close to the orbit of one of Saturn's smaller moons, Atlas. Images of Saturn sent back to Earth by the Cassini spacecraft reveal a newly discovered ring and at least one new moon, scientists say. Cassini finds two new Saturn moons, Science Online,.Saturn's rings show surprising features, Science Online,.
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