NASA May Have Captured the Miracle of a Moon's Birth

[Buster's Uncle]

NASA May Have Captured the Miracle of a Moon's Birth
The Atlantic Wire
By Danielle Wiener-Bronner  2 hours ago






Researchers suspect that a photo taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft may show the "birth" of a brand new moon of Saturn, which could also be the last-ever moon of Saturn.

NASA reported that images taken last year show "disturbances at the very edge of Saturn's A ring — the outermost of the planet's large, bright rings," which could signify the gravitational pull of a nearby object. The object, nicknamed Peggy, is only about one-half mile across, which is too small to be seen in photographs.

According to Carl Murray, lead author of a study analyzing the images that was published online in the journal Icarus this week, "We may be looking at the act of birth, where this object is just leaving the rings and heading off to be a moon in its own right." Murray adds that "We have not seen anything like this before."

Researchers are excited by the find because it could offer new insight into how Saturn's other moons (there are 62 of them, not including Peggy) were formed:

The process of its formation and outward movement aids in our understanding of how Saturn's icy moons, including the cloud-wrapped Titan and ocean-holding Enceladus, may have formed in more massive rings long ago.

A new moon's formation could also help scientists understand how the Earth and other planets in the solar system pulled away from the Sun. Peggy is also significant because, according to NASA, it could be Saturn's last moon:

It is possible the process of moon formation in Saturn's rings has ended with Peggy, as Saturn's rings now are, in all likelihood, too depleted to make more moons... "The theory holds that Saturn long ago had a much more massive ring system capable of giving birth to larger moons," Murray said. "As the moons formed near the edge, they depleted the rings and evolved, so the ones that formed earliest are the largest and the farthest out."

Cassini won't get another shot of the object until late next year, which means scientists won't know for sure whether or not Peggy is a moon or just another icy object floating in space for a long time yet.

This article was originally published at http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/04/saturn-new-moon-peggy/360770/


http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-may-captured-miracle-moons-birth-220736810.html

[Buster's Uncle]

NASA Photo May Show Birth of New Saturn Moon (Image)
SPACE.com
by Mike Wall, Senior Writer  April 15, 2014 6:14 PM



The disturbance visible at the outer edge of Saturn's A ring in this image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft could be caused by an object replaying the birth process of icy moons.



A NASA spacecraft may have witnessed the birth of a new Saturn moon.

Photographs taken by NASA's Cassini probe in April 2013 show a bright arc about 750 miles (1,200 kilometers) long and 6 miles (10 km) wide at the edge of Saturn's outermost ring (known as the A ring). This arc and some strange bumps nearby were probably created by the gravity of a small, icy object —possibly a newborn moon, a new study reports.

"We have not seen anything like this before," study lead author Carl Murray, of Queen Mary University of London, said in a statement. "We may be looking at the act of birth, where this object is just leaving the rings and heading off to be a moon in its own right."

The object, which researchers have dubbed "Peggy," is at most 0.5 miles (0.8 km) wide — too small to be seen in images taken by Cassini so far. But the spacecraft will move closer to the A ring's outer edge in 2016, giving reseachers a chance to study Peggy in more detail and possibly even get a picture of the object, NASA officials said.

Saturn has more than 60 known moons. These satellites are quite diverse, ranging in size from the colossal Titan, which is nearly 1.5 times wider than Earth's moon, to tiny iceballs less than 1 mile across.

Scientists think these moons formed from ice particles within the rings (which are composed almost entirely of water ice) and then moved outward, growing by combining with other nascent satellites along the way. Studying Peggy further could help shed light on this process, researchers said, even though the object is probably done growing (and may even be disintegrating).

Peggy offers a unique opportunity, because Saturn may be pretty much done making new moons.

"The theory holds that Saturn long ago had a much more massive ring system capable of giving birth to larger moons," Murray said. "As the moons formed near the edge, they depleted the rings and evolved, so the ones that formed earliest are the largest and the farthest out."

The new study was published online Monday (April 14) in the journal Icarus.


http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-photo-may-show-birth-saturn-moon-image-221413839.html

[Buster's Uncle]

NASA catches a glimpse of Saturn birthing a new moon
Engadget
BY Mariella Moon  @mariella_moon  April 16th 2014, at 2:07:00 am ET
 





For the first and perhaps the last time ever, NASA's Cassini spacecraft, whose mission is to orbit Saturn, has captured a new moon emerge from the Jovian planet's rings. As you might know, the birth of a moon is an extremely rare event, and in Saturn's case, it might never happen again. You see, there's a theory that the sixth planet from the sun used to have a much larger ring system, which led to formation of numerous natural satellites. After birthing a whopping 62 moons, though, the rings are now too depleted to make more, even if they still look lush from afar. This could be our very last chance to observe how Saturn's ring particles form a natural satellite that detaches from the planet and ultimately orbits around it.

Scientists estimate that the newborn, which they have named Peggy, is merely half a mile in diameter. That makes it positively tiny compared to the planet's largest moon, Titan, which has a diameter that measures 3,200 miles, or around half the size of Earth. In fact, it's so small that Cassini can't even take a decent picture of it, though NASA plans to observe it more closely when the spacecraft moves closer to the outer edge of the rings in 2016. Sadly, scientists believe Peggy won't grow any bigger and might be falling apart, so the little one might never get to become a legitimate Saturn satellite.



[Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute]


http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/16/nasa-cassini-saturn-moon/?ncid=rss_truncated

[Valka]

Happy birthday, Peggy.