The Birth and Death of Saturn Moonlets

The Saturn system is always in motion, always changing. Saturn itself is a gas giant, with swirling storms, and like the other gas giants it has a host of moons flying around, perturbing each other's motions. And then there's the rings. From a distance, they seem like a solid disk, and their overall shape and appearance doesn't really change with time -- there's the semitransparent A ring and the solid B ring separated by the Cassini division, visible from smallish telescopes.

Up close, though, the rings are in a constant state of change, because after all, they're not a solid, flat disk; they're made of uncountable small particles, ranging in size from dust up to tens, hundreds of meters in size, even a few that are a couple of kilometers across, which people usually regard as moonlets, although they're as much a part of the rings as any of the smaller particles.

One of the most dynamic parts of the rings is the F ring.…

See Planetary Society Weblog for links to further info.

Also see the Dome News.