Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Mark Robert Showalter (born December 5, 1957) is a senior research scientist at the SETI Institute. [1] He is the discoverer of six moons and three planetary rings. He is the Principal Investigator of NASA's Planetary Data System Rings Node, a co-investigator on the Cassini–Huygens mission to Saturn, and works closely with the New Horizons mission to Pluto.
Keeler was the first to observe the gap in Saturn's rings now known as the Encke Gap, using the 36-inch refractor at Lick Observatory on 7 January 1888. After this feature had been named for Johann Encke, who had observed a much broader variation in the brightness of the A Ring, [3] Keeler's contributions were brought to light. [4]
In addition he discovered the Cassini Division in the rings of Saturn (1675). [7] He shares credit with Robert Hooke for the discovery of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter (ca. 1665). Around 1690, Cassini was the first to observe differential rotation within Jupiter's atmosphere.
Pan is the innermost named moon of Saturn. [4] It is approximately 35 kilometres across and 23 km wide and orbits within the Encke Gap in Saturn's A Ring.Pan is a ring shepherd and is responsible for keeping the Encke Gap free of ring particles.
Science & Tech. Shopping. Sports
Saturn has the most spectacular ring system, with seven rings and several gaps and divisions between them. Few missions have visited Saturn: Pioneer 11 and Voyagers 1 and 2 flew by, but Cassini ...
J1407b's disk has a 4-million km (2.5-million mi)-wide gap between radii 0.396 to 0.421 AU (59.2 to 63.0 million km; 36.8 to 39.1 million mi), which is believed to have been created by a nearly-Earth-sized (<0.8 M 🜨) exomoon orbiting within that gap and clearing out material, in a similar fashion to the shepherd moons of Saturn's rings.
Saturn’s autumnal equinox is expected to occur on May 6, 2025. Spying Saturn’s spokes The NASA Voyager 2 spacecraft captured the first evidence of the spokes in the 1980s.