Close Views Show Saturn's Rings in Unprecedented Detail

The high-resolution image of Daphnis is pretty astonishing [1]. You can see the moon back-illuminating a thin silver lining around the crest of the trailing density wave. I missed it just looking at the thumbnail picture!<p>Both of the moons imaged in the flyby, Daphnis and Pandora, are of interest because they&#x27;re examples of shepherd moons [2] that sculpt the surrounding ring material. For example, the Cassini Division [3] is made by Mimas clearing material at the 2-to-1 orbital resonance. Daphnis, along with Pan, also happens to be the only shepherd moon orbiting within Saturn&#x27;s main rings.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov&#x2F;catalog&#x2F;PIA21056" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov&#x2F;catalog&#x2F;PIA21056</a> (click the &quot;full resolution JPEG&quot;)<p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Shepherd_moon" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Shepherd_moon</a><p>[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Rings_of_Saturn#Cassini_Division" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Rings_of_Saturn#Cassini_Divisi...</a>

I recently learned that some of the density waves in Saturn ( shown in the top picture in the article) are due to pressure waves in the interior of Saturn itself, so the rings can actually be used to study the composition of the interior of Saturn. I thought that was pretty remarkable.

In case you&#x27;re wondering what the flecks are, apparently it&#x27;s cosmic radiation and waves hitting the sensor (you have only to read the description to find out but not everyone does). At first I thought there were millions of little features in the rings!

I somehow expected to see the individual objects that make them up. If you were close enough, would that be visible? Or would they be so sparse - like clouds - that they become invisible at short distances?

Nothings puts me in my place faster than this. To think that these are real images of a real thing.

These are amazing. I wish there was an overlay on the images to give a sense of scale.