Thursday, June 02, 2005
More Rings
Picture of the day on the Cassini web site. Back in 1979 when Pioneer 11 was aimed to Saturn from its Jupiter encounter earlier in the decade, there was talk of sending the probe through the Cassini division, but as you can see, that would have met with disaster. Earthbound astronomers could not image that largest dark "gap" to see it was actually full of material. Particles in the Cassini division take half the time to orbit the planet as the moon Mimas does. It was understood that Mimas' gravity would tug those particles slightly one way or the other into the bright A and B rings.
