Saturn Surprise: One Ring is Actually a Spiral

[Jay-qu]

Ever since Voyager 1 returned detailed images of Saturn's F ring back in 1980, astronomers have struggled to understand its bizarre features.

 

The F ring, an outer thin wisp of icy material orbiting the giant planet, was discovered in 1979. It's been described as having clumps, strands and braids by various research groups.

 

An animation released in December showed the features, described as kinks, moving through time.

 

Turns out none of these descriptions was right, according to a new study using data and images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft and led by Sebastien Charnoz at the University of Paris.

 

"These strands, initially interpreted as concentric ring segments, are in fact connected and form a single one-arm trailing spiral winding at least three times around Saturn," Charnoz and colleagues write in the Nov. 25 issue of the journal Science.

 

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/051128_mystery_monday.html