Pan and Daphnis and their ring waves

Filed under pretty pictures, many worlds, amateur image processing, Saturn's moons, Saturn's rings, Saturn's small moons, Cassini

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Patterns at the outer edge of the A ring are excited by the gravitational influence of Pan, upper left, and Daphnis, near the bottom. In this image the rings have been brightened relative to the moons. Pan's saucer shape -- common for Saturn's ringmoons -- is obvious. Pan's longest axis always points toward Saturn.

NASA / JPL / SSI / processed by Emily Lakdawalla

Copyright holder: Emily Lakdawalla

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Contact us to request publication permission from the copyright holder. Original image data dated on or about June 3, 2010