Low density, recent surfaces, and somewhat oblong shapes all hint that some of these moons are likely to be less than 100 million years old.
Cassini's Pale Blue Dot - 2 views
Cassiny observations indicate birth of potential new Saturn moon - 0 views
Saturn's rings gave birth to mini-moons - 0 views
-
-
Researchers suspected that the moons might have originated through some sort of interactions within the A Ring, but the number of bodies involved made modeling the system too computationally challenging. Fortunately, Moore's Law caught up with Cassini, and today's issue of Nature contains a paper that describes a model that successfully reproduces the pattern of moons we now observe.
Observatory - Cassini Data Solves Mystery of Iapetus's Two-Tone Surface - NYTimes.com - 4 views
-
dust, most likely from another of Saturn’s moons, falls on the leading side of Iapetus as it orbits the planet
1 - 9 of 9
Showing 20▼ items per page