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PIA14942: A Race Around Saturn (Animation)
This frame from an animation depicts the shearing of an initially circular cloud of debris as a result of the particles in the cloud having differing orbital speeds around Saturn based on data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
 Target Name:  Saturn
 Mission:  Cassini-Huygens 
 Spacecraft:  Cassini Orbiter
 Product Size:  1904 x 996 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  Cornell University 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA14942.tif (1.899 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA14942.jpg (95.12 kB)  

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Original Caption Released with Image:

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This animation depicts the shearing of an initially circular cloud of debris as a result of the particles in the cloud having differing orbital speeds around Saturn. After the cloud is formed, each particle within it follows its own simple orbit. The cloud begins to elongate as particles closer to the planet orbit at a faster speed than the particles farther from the planet. Scientists can use the angle the cloud was canted to infer the time elapsed since it was formed. This method was used to determine the times of the impacts that created the clouds in Saturn's rings that were captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft (see PIA14938 for more information).

A still version of this graphic can be seen at PIA14942.

For more information on clouds of ejected material see PIA11675.

For more information on Cassini, visit http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.

Image Credit:
NASA/Cornell

Image Addition Date:
2013-04-25