NASA's Cassini spacecraft has captured images of an icy formation within Saturn's rings suggesting a new Moon may be in the making.
The images were captured April 15, 2013, through Cassini's narrow angle camera. A number of evident disturbances were noted on Saturn's A ring - the outermost ring of the planet. NASA revealed that one of these disturbances includes an arc that is 20 percent brighter than the ring surrounding it. The arc is 1,200 km long and 10 km wide. There were also some unusual protuberances in the otherwise smooth edge of the ring. Scientists believe the arc and protuberances are caused by the gravitational effects of a nearby object.
"We have not seen anything like this before," said Carl Murray of Queen Mary University of London, the report's lead author. "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."
Researchers clarified that the object won't grow any further and may even start falling apart soon. However, its formation may offer clues to how Saturn's icy moons including the cloud-wrapped Titan and ocean-holding Enceladus, might have formed years ago.
The object is too small to be captured and studied. According to estimates, it has a diameter that is only about half a mile. It has been nicknamed Peggy.
The size of the planet's icy moons largely depends on its proximity to the planet - the further away it is, the larger it grows. Researchers speculate that most of the planet's moons formed from particles from Saturn's icy rings and then moved away to merge with other moons.
"Witnessing the possible birth of a tiny moon is an exciting, unexpected event," said Cassini Project Scientist Linda Spilker, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. According to Spilker, Cassini's orbit will move closer to the outer edge of the A ring in late 2016 and provide an opportunity to study Peggy in more detail and perhaps even image it.
Scientists also speculate that Peggy may be the last moon formed on Saturn as its rings are too depleted to form more moons. This makes the observation all the more interesting.
"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."
Studying Saturn's moons has always fascinated researchers. Recently, NASA researchers uncovered evidence that indicates Saturn's moon Enceladus has a large underground ocean made up of liquid water. There is also a huge possibility that this underground reservoir hosted microbial life.
