Many Mini-Jets
Saturn's F ring shows several "mini-jets" near the upper-right of this image captured by the Cassini spacecraft. The A ring also appears in the lower-left of the image.
The mini-jets are thought by scientists to be caused by low-speed collisions in the core of the F ring ejecting dusty material from the core. For more on the mini-jets, see Exotic Trails or Mini-Jets.
This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 10 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Aug. 14, 2012. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 538,000 miles (867,000 kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 10 degrees. Image scale is 3 miles (5 kilometers) per pixel.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
<< Previous Cassini