Saturn’s F ring tagged posts

This graphic shows the closest approaches of Cassini’s final two orbital phases. Ring-grazing orbits are shown in gray (at left); Grand Finale orbits are shown in blue. The orange line shows the spacecraft’s Sept. 2017 final plunge into Saturn. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft has made its first close dive past the outer edges of Saturn’s rings since beginning its penultimate mission phase on Nov. 30. Cassini crossed through the plane of Saturn’s rings on Dec. 4 at 5:09 a.m. PST at a distance of ~57,000 miles above Saturn’s cloud tops. This is the approximate location of a faint, dusty ring produced by the planet’s small moons Janus and Epimetheus, and just 6,800 miles from the center of Saturn’s F ring.

About an hour prior to the ring-plane crossing...

Images of Saturn’s Main Rings, the F Ring, and its Shepherd Satellites Obtained by Cassini /The narrow F ring located just outside of the outer edge of the main rings. Two satellites sandwiching the F ring slightly above and to the left of the center of the image are the shepherd satellites Prometheus (inner orbit) and Pandora (outer orbit) (NASA/PIA12717) Credit: Image courtesy of Kobe University

Saturn’s F ring and its shepherd satellites are natural outcome of the final stage of formation of Saturn’s satellite system. Saturn, which is the 2nd largest planet in our solar system, is known to have multiple rings and satellites. In 1979, Pioneer 11 discovered the F ring located just outside the main ring system that extends tens of thousands of kilometers...