A Spiral

By | November 28, 2005
3 Comments

Via GeekPress, one of Saturn’s rings is not a ring:

“These strands, initially interpreted as concentric ring segments, are in fact connected and form a single one-arm trailing spiral winding at least three times around Saturn,” Charnoz and colleagues write in the Nov. 25 issue of the journal Science.

The artist’s rendering makes this more understandable.

This discovery has scientists scratching their heads. How could such a structure possibly have formed? But, hey, we figured out the rings — even with their shepherd moons — we’ll figure out the spiral.

  • DaveColes

    Anybody remember the novel “Footfall” by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, where oddities in Saturn’s rings (discovered by a probe from Earth) turn out to have been caused by the drive of an extraterrestrial spacraft hiding in the rings?

  • https://www.blog.speculist.com Stephen Gordon

    After looking at that illustration, it makes me wonder if the other rings will also turn out to be, on closer inspection, spirals.

    Reminds me of grooves on a record.

    I wonder what it would sound like? :-)

  • GotToBTru

    What would it sound like? “Send more Chuck Berry!” of course.