Propeller Close Up (IMAGE)

University of Colorado at Boulder

Propeller Close Up

Caption

A team led CU-Boulder has detected an unseen belt of moonlets in Saturn’s outermost "A" ring (top image, outer purple band). The gravity of the largest moonlets creates propeller-shaped "wakes" in the ring material 10 to 20 miles across (boxed, in bottom image).

Credit

NASA/ JPL/Space Science Institute/University of Colorado.

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