Titan Raises Tsunamis in Saturn Ring

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By Lisa Grossman October 4, 2010 | 6:19 pm | Categories: Space


A crack in one of Saturn’s rings could be held open by the planet’s largest moon, Titan. A new analysis of data from the Cassini orbiter shows that Titan’s gravity lifts part of the ring in a rotating tidal wave almost two miles high.

“It’s a little bit like a tsunami propagating away from an earthquake fault,” said planetary scientist Phillip Nicholson of Cornell University in a press briefing Oct. 4. Nicholson presented a new model explaining the ring gap at the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences meeting in Pasadena, California.

Saturn’s rings are riddled with gaps, many of which are held open by small moons. But in the last five years, since Cassini discovered the moon Daphnis, no new moons have shown up in the other known fissures.

“It’s become an increasing problem, as to what determines where these gaps are in the rings and what keeps the gaps open,” Nicholson said.



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