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The A-Ring in 16:9 (natural colors + MULTISPECTRUM; credits: Lunexit)
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Caption NASA:"Spiral density waves in Saturn's A-Ring reveal the gravitational signatures of distant moons as they subtly tug on the countless particles orbiting in the Ring-Plane.
Resulting from a process called orbital resonance, a spiral density wave is a spiral-shaped massing of particles that tightly winds many times around the Planet. Thus, the wave patterns seen here represent successive windings of each wave, like a close-up view of a watch spring.
Ring scientists can read these patterns, learning from them how quickly the Rings are spreading and the amount of mass contained in a region.
This view looks toward the sunlit side of the Rings from about 42° below the Ring-Plane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 1, 2008. The view was obtained at a distance of approx. 268.000 Km (about 167.000 miles) from Saturn.
Image scale is roughly 1 Km (0,6 miles) per pixel".
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