of late , the cameras on board the Cassini ballistic capsule caught images of shooting star racing through the rings of Saturn . Or , rather , photos of the clouds of detritus created as the meteors impact the icy ring speck . These meteor were probably a lot smaller than the Chelyabinsk meteor—-let alone the monsters that rained onto Jupiter—-being perhaps only a yard wide .
The bright streaks seeable in the the first pair of Cassini range were photographed in August 2009 . They were n’t noticed until recently plainly because they are so hard to spot . But the great number that have been feel is evidence that these are not rare consequence .
One cause these had not been keep before is that the bright clouds of particles are difficult to see against the screen background of the equally promising rings . The stand out more clearly when the sunlight angle is very lowly , as it was when these photos were taken . When the sun is almost directly in tune with the ring , a cloud of dust rising above the darkened hoop plane catches the sun ’s rays forthwith . The contrast with the dingy setting now make the swarm more easily visible . When the ring backdrop is at its usual brightness , impacts such as these are very difficult to detect .
The impact of these object , estimated to about 3 feet wide and traveling tens of naut mi per second , created cloud of tiny particles that were then stretched into long run by the question of the ring .
The image above ( click to see full size of it ) evidence an impact in the A ring . The bar stretches from the right wing of the image to the midsection , and it does not quite follow the curved shape of the tintinnabulation . The brightest part of the run is over 3000 miles long and 200 klick wide ( its radial extent , lead to tip ) in this image .
The image above ( chatter to see full size ) shows an shock into the 100 ring . This bar is much modest than the A ring bar , and it appears on the right hand of the image . The brightest part of this streak is 200 kilometers long ( its azimuthal dimension ) and 6 miles broad . Scientists estimate that the wallop took place about two days earlier . Impact mottle less than a solar day previous have also been discovered in the vitamin C pack .
accept together , these observations corroborate of a long - held notion that interplanetary debris continually rains down on Saturn ’s rings . These constant impingement contribute to the rings ’ wearing away and phylogeny .
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