Posted on Leave a comment

Oh how cute! Saturn just made an itty-biddy baby moon (named “Peggy”)

image thumb85

Strange equatorial ridge on Iapetus (one of Saturn's moons)Saturn has more than 60 moons and researchers said yesterday that they think they may have captured a photo of Saturn giving birth to another itty-biddy moon (which they named “Peggy”).

NASA’s Cassini space probe took the picture in April 2013 which shows a bright arc about 750 miles wide at the edge of Saturn’s outermost ring (see bottom left-hand side of picture above). Scientists think the arc and strange bumps located near it were probably created by the gravity of a small, icy object – possibly a newborn moon.

Scientists think that most of Saturn’s moons are made of ice that broke out of Saturn’s rings (which are also made mostly of water ice) when the rings were much, much bigger.

Saturn and its moons
Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *