Like the fist of an angry god

Like the fist of an angry god

blogs.discovermagazine.com

Deep in the outer realms of our solar system, well over a billion kilometers away, something bizarre happened at Saturn’s F ring.

I mean, seriously: what the hell happened here?

This is one of the latest pictures returned from the remarkable human achievement that is the Cassini spacecraft, a probe the size of a school bus that has been orbiting the ringed planet since 2004.

(visit the link for the full news article)

There's always something interesting going on around Saturn it seems.. I don't know what caused this anomaly. Add this to the list of strange things like the "transmission" and the weird hexagon pole.. They just found a whole bunch more moons as well.. Sometimes I really wonder if there might be something special about Saturn.

blogs.discovermagazine.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Pretty interesting, I wonder if the ring was hit by a meteor and dislodged part of the ring??

-E-

*was so close to posting this, glad I checked first*

I would think that it would have been a meteor or something like that as well. If there truly is something special about Saturn (other than just about everything), then I'll know there really was always a good reason for it to be my favorite of all planets (outside of Earth, that is).

I found one of the comments on the Bad Astronomy website hilarious. It was talking about how it was probably caused by the native Saturians packing up and leaving because they were tired of all of the tourists and their cameras.

If you consider how big Saturn is, and how big those rings are, that little bump must be freaking huge.

I wonder if a large meteor passed through it and pulled at some of the ring's matter with its gravity?

Some astronomers are saying this is possibly caused by Saturn's moon Daphnis perturbing the material that makes up the rings.

...by the way, there are already other threads on this subject.

[edit on 8/10/2009 by Soylent Green Is People]

Thats what it looks like to me... that a meteor just got " lucky" and smashed thru the ring. But mattifikation is right... that lil bump is massive so it must have been somthing big what ever it was.

I dont buy into the whole " It is one of the moons fault " cause, how long have those moons been there? Why would they affect the rings now.

Originally posted by Topsy_Cret
Thats what it looks like to me... that a meteor just got " lucky" and smashed thru the ring. But mattifikation is right... that lil bump is massive so it must have been somthing big what ever it was.

I dont buy into the whole " It is one of the moons fault " cause, how long have those moons been there? Why would they affect the rings now.

It's not a totally "new" thing...
...here's a link from June of Daphnis affecting Saturn's ring in another strange manner:
ciclops.org...

and another shot of Dahpnis taken recently:
onorbit.com...

These things are more noticeable now because Saturn is reaching an "Equinox" -- which means that its rings are edge-on to the Sun, therefore these disturbances in the ring system are more easily noticed by Cassini because of the long shadows being cast by them.


[edit on 8/10/2009 by Soylent Green Is People]