Saturn’s F ring

February 18th, 2017

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Saturn’s F ring

From a far view Saturn’s F ring looks as one, but as you look closer there are multiple strands made up of material that was knocked off with interactions with a small moon. There are four strands, one strand being vary faint and hard to see.

These strands are famous for a bed it has on its strands. When looked at in some detail, you see around the planet the ring has spiral. Astronomers have a hard time catagorizing this ring because it is very disrupted and dense.  2701_PIA07717

It is the smaller rings to see as the width is only 30-500 km, compared to the next smaller right called the Pauline Ring which is 2500 km in width. The F ring is on the very outside of all the rings. Astronomers were unaware of this ring until 1979 when Voyagers 1 closest orbit. In this orbit we discovered about the F ring and the G ring. What is thought to be in the F ring is 13 type of particles with a size of 10 km on average. They are mostly ice boulders and degree from other objects blasting each other creating thousands of particles satIn the photo above you can barley see the F ring on the very outside. because of it being so outside it the most active ring. The shape of it changes within hours of each other. There is a main strand to the F ring, and the surround 3 strands are spiral. It receives material from the moon making it a new type of ring every time we get a glimpse of it.

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