And then there were 61.[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The pinprick of light (boxed) in this trio of images taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows the path of a newly discovered moon moving within a bright arc in Saturn's faint G ring. The tiny body, roughly half a kilometer in diameter, is the 61st moon known to orbit the ringed planet. Cassini scientists, who announced the find in a March 3 circular from the International Astronomical Union, believe that icy particles chipped off the tiny moon may be the source of the arc, which is 250 kilometers wide and extends one-sixth of the way around the G ring's circumference. |
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