New images have uncovered evidence that the rings of the showiest of the planets in the Solar System don't look the way we thought they did:
Saturn's rings may look smooth and even when viewed through a telescope but they are in fact made up of clumps of particles and may be much denser than realized, scientists said on Tuesday.
Measurements taken from the joint NASA, Italian and European Space Agency Cassini spacecraft show that the particles in Saturn's B ring are constantly colliding, which surprised scientists.
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"We originally thought we would see a uniform cloud of particles. Instead we find that the particles are clumped together with empty spaces in between."
And this left me pondering:
If the clumps were farther from Saturn, they might aggregate even more to make a moon but because they are so close to the massive planet, they get stretched apart.
... imagine Saturn without rings ...
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