14 Dec 2016

The waves that Daphnis raises on the edges of the Keeler Gap can also be used to deduce the moon's mass and even some of its orbital behavior

Saturn's moon Daphnis waves are one way that scientists search for undiscovered moons in the ring gaps. The waves that Daphnis (8 kilometers across) raises on the edges of the Keeler Gap can also be used to deduce the moon's mass and even some of its orbital behavior. Since the moon moves in and out of the ring-plane, and closer to and farther from the rings' edges as it orbits, the waves it makes change over time. Cassini has been observing these changes during its extended study of the Saturn system to help understand this interaction.

This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 35 degrees above the ring plane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Oct. 10, 2016. Daphnis has been brightened by a factor of two in this image to increase its visibility.
The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.3 million kilometers from Daphnis and at a Sun-Daphnis-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 96 degrees. Image scale is 8 kilometers per pixel. Daphnis is an inner satellite of Saturn. It is also known as Saturn XXXV and was discovered by the Cassini Imaging Science Team on May 2005.

The Cassini mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA and the Italian Space Agency. ASI is one of the partners of the Cassini mission: on the basis of a cooperation agreement with NASA it has developed for Cassini the high gain antenna with the incorporation of a low-gain antenna (that ensure telecommunications with the Earth for the entire duration of the mission), the VIMS spectrometer, the radio-science subsystem (RSIS) and the radar which also uses the high-gain antenna. ASI has also developed for the Huygens spacecraft the HASI instrument which measured the physical properties of the atmosphere and Titan's surface.