Science
Related: About this forumCassini Spies Mysterious Object Named ‘Peggy’ at Edge of Saturn’s Rings
SAN FRANCISCO NASAs Cassini spacecraft has spotted an object located right at the edge of Saturns A ring that is confounding scientists. Its name? Peggy.
This strange something was spotted by accident on April 15 when Cassinis cameras were aimed at a tiny moon named Prometheus that orbits just inside another of Saturns rings. A member of the missions imaging team, astronomer Carl Murray of Queen Mary University of London, noticed an odd kink at the A rings edge that jutted outward.
Id not seen anything like this personally in the A ring, he said during a talk today here at the 2013 American Geophysical Union conference.
Because he was analyzing the images on April 19, the same day as his mother-in-laws 80th birthday, Murray named the mystery object after her. Peggy (the object) appears to be about 1 kilometer in diameter, much too small to be a moon or even moonlet, which are generally at least 10 times bigger. Cassinis cameras can only see down to about 10 km, so Peggy is only known by the interference it causes.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/12/saturn-rings-peggy/
Two photos of Peggy
Close up of Peggy
thelordofhell
(4,569 posts)Sherman A1
(38,958 posts)now we know where their call center is located!
silverweb
(16,402 posts)[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]From when Saturn was populated by humanoids and had a space program. Before the humanoids destroyed the environment and the planet's habitability.
intaglio
(8,170 posts)and he names it after his mother-in-law ...
Sancho
(9,067 posts)Should have named it TMA-4...
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)not Jupiter, but Kubrick changed it for the film.
Response to Ichingcarpenter (Original post)
Warren DeMontague This message was self-deleted by its author.