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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.
Cassini was born in Perinaldo, [2] [3] near Imperia, at that time in the County of Nice, part of the Savoyard state. [4] [5] He discovered four satellites of Saturn and noted the division of its rings, later named the Cassini Division. Cassini was also the first of his family to begin work on the project of creating a topographic map of France ...
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]
The latter include the D Ring, extending inward to Saturn's cloud tops, the G and E Rings and others beyond the main ring system. These diffuse rings are characterised as "dusty" because of the small size of their particles (often about a μm); their chemical composition is, like the main rings, almost entirely water ice. The narrow F Ring ...
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.
A study published in the journal Science suggests a hypothetical moon (called Chrysalis) came too close to Saturn's gravitational pull and was torn apart, forming the planet's iconic rings.
He discovered Saturn's biggest moon, Titan, and was the first to explain Saturn's strange appearance as due to "a thin, flat ring, nowhere touching, and inclined to the ecliptic." [10] In 1662, he developed what is now called the Huygenian eyepiece, a telescope with two lenses to diminish the amount of dispersion. [11]
Christiaan Huygens followed on from Galileo's discoveries by discovering Saturn's moon Titan and the shape of the rings of Saturn. [14] Giovanni Domenico Cassini later discovered four more moons of Saturn and the Cassini division in Saturn's rings. [15] The Sun photographed through a telescope with special solar filter.