New Moon for Saturn

The Cassini space craft has been sending back some rather interesting images to NASA scientists. Some believe that it may just have documented the birth of a new moon for the planet Saturn. The images show a small icy object within the rings of the planet which is 20percent brighter than the surrounding area.

The object which is barely half a mile in radius is positioned at the outermost ring and believed to be the cause of an arc of disturbance in the ring measuring 750 miles long and 6 miles wide. The unidentified object has been informally dubbed Peggy and its formation and outward movement aids in our understanding of how Saturn’s icy moons may have formed in more massive rings long ago.

The most famous of  the moons being the cloud-wrapped Titan and ocean-holding Enceladu were probaly formed from the more robust ring structures around the planet in the ancient past. While Peggy may not have enough material in the rings to actually grow to a full sized moon it provided valuable insight in to how the planets formed and moved away from the sun. It really aids in the science project to understand just how the solar system was formed.