Saturn's ring mystery is solved
Cassini images of Saturn's G ring captures its single, bright arc
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Scientists have made a significant step forward in understanding the dynamics of Saturn's magnificent and mysterious system of rings.
The behaviour of one ring in particular - the G ring - has baffled experts.
Its dust particles should ebb away because there are no nearby moons to hold them in place or replenish them.
But the Cassini probe has shed new light on the faint, narrow ring; showing that it interacts with a much more distant Saturnian satellite.
The work, published in Science, also unveiled the ring's odd structure.
The G ring is one of Saturn's outermost rings: it is more than 168,000km from the centre of the planet and more than 15,000km from the nearest moon.
"It's a dusty ring," explained Matthew Hedman, a research associate at Cornell University and lead author of the study. "Like the E ring and F ring, it is primarily composed of tiny grains of ice just a few microns across."
clipped from: news.bbc.co.uk