William Atkins
Wednesday, 04 March 2009 19:36
Science -
Space
Page 2 of 3
The astronomers think that the moon was formed from materials within the ring. Even though it is a tiny moon compared to the other sixty moons of Saturn, it is the largest object in its local neighborhood.
Matthew Hedman (from Cornell University, Ithaca, New York), a member of the Cassini imaging team, stated,
"Being one of the bigger objects, the moonlet is likely to be hit more often.” {National Geographic: “
New Saturn Moon: Tiny Gem Found in Outer Ring”]
See images of the tiny moon on the NASA website entitled “
Tiny Moonlet Within G Ring Arc.”
At the time the images were taken by Cassini, Saturn was about 751,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) from the spacecraft.
Dr. Hedman added a comment on these collisions,
“… as this and other objects grind themselves down, it's conceivable they would disappear, and then the G ring would disappear” [National Geographic]
However, Hedman also added that as this moonlet crashes into other moonlets, the materials left over from the collisions could form new rings or add to the existing rings.
Page three concludes by saying why this discovery of a tiny moon of Saturn is huge news in the astronomy world.
