![]() It also helps create and shape the narrow ringlets that appear in the gap It’s lookalike cousin Atlas orbits just outside the A-ring. Adjusted for inflation, this works out to about 1.23. Today, Pan orbits within and clears the narrow Encke Gap in Saturn’s outer A-ring of debris. In terms of individual launches, the Saturn V would cost 185 million to 189 million, of which 110 million was spent on production alone. Pan shares the gap with several diffuse ringlets from which it may still be gathering additional material around its equatorial ridge. Pan casts its shadow on Saturn’s A-ring from within the 200-mile-wide (325 km) Encke Gap, which is maintained by the presence of the moon. Tellingly, the ridges are about as thick as the vertical distances each satellite travels in its orbit about the planet. Much of the material flattened out to form Saturn’s rings while large shards like Pan and another ravioli lookalike, Atlas, orbited within or near the rings, sweeping up ring particles about their middles. How does such a bizarre object form in the first place? There’s good reason to believe that Pan was once part of a larger satellite that broke up near Saturn long ago. The two-part structure of the moon is immediately obvious: a core body with a thin, wavy ridge encircling its equator. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science InstituteĪs Pan moves along the Encke Gap its gravity creates ripples in Saturn’s A-ring. A side view of Pan better shows its thin and wavy ridge likely built up through the accumulation of particles grabbed from Saturn’s rings. The ridge is between 0.9 and 2.5 miles (1-4 km) thick. Closeup photos taken by the Cassini probe of the the planet’s second-innermost moon, Pan, on March 7 reveal remarkable new details that have us grasping at food analogies in a feeble attempt to describe its unique appearance. ![]() Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Instituteīesides Earth, Saturn may be the only other planet where you can order rings with a side of ravioli. Its broad, thinner equatorial ridge displays fine, parallel striations. Pan measures 22 miles wide by 14 miles across and displays a number of small craters along with parallel ridges and grooves. This new view of Saturn’s moon Pan is the closest yet, snapped by Cassini from a distance of 15,268 miles (24,572 km) on March 7, 2017. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.įor more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. Pan is 33 kilometers (20.5 miles) across at its equator and 21 kilometers (13 miles) across at its poles Atlas is 39 kilometers (24 miles) across at its equator and 18 kilometers (11 miles) across at its poles. The images were acquired with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera between 20. The ridges represent about 27 percent of Atlas' volume and 10 percent of Pan's volume. Pan's ridge reaches about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) at 0 degrees west longitude, and is about 1.5 kilometers (0.9 mile) high over most of the rest of the equator. Heights of Atlas' ridge range from about 3 kilometers (2 miles) at 270 degrees west longitude to 5 kilometers (3 miles) at 180 and 0 degrees. The heights of the ridges can be crudely estimated by assuming (ellipsoidal) shapes that lack ridges and vary smoothly cross the equator. ![]() Atlas shows more asymmetry than Pan in having a more rounded ridge in the leading and sub-Saturn quadrants. On Atlas, the ridge extends 20 to 30 degrees in latitude on either side of the equator on Pan, its latitudinal extent is 15 to 20 degrees. ![]() The highest resolution images of Pan and Atlas reveal distinctive "flying saucer" shapes created by prominent equatorial ridges not seen on the other small moons of Saturn.įrom left to right: a view of Atlas' trailing hemisphere, with north up, at a spatial scale of about 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) per pixel Atlas seen at about 250 meters (820 feet) per pixel from mid-southern latitudes, with the sub-Saturn hemisphere at the top and leading hemisphere to the left Pan's trailing hemisphere seen at about 3 kilometers (2 miles) per pixel from low southern latitudes an equatorial view, with Saturn in the background, of Pan's anti-Saturn hemisphere at about 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) per pixel. ![]()
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