Ice Tsunamis Dectected in Saturn's Ring

[link to news.nationalgeographic.com]

The gravitational pull of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, causes giant, circling "tsunamis" of icy particles in one of the planet's rings, new data suggest. The discovery may solve the 30-year-old mystery of a gap in Saturn's faint, inner C ring.

NASA's Voyager 1 probe—observing Saturn's rings from a single, shallow angle—first recorded a rippling region within the C ring during a November 1980 flyby.

The otherwise regular ripple was interrupted by a gap that seemed to be almost 9.3 miles (15 kilometers) wide, based on radio data. Complicating the matter, later pictures of the C ring showed no large gap.

Now scientists working with NASA's Cassini orbiter have confirmed the gap exists.

Because the ripples and gaps are generally too subtle to discern in Cassini images, the researchers observed the gap largely indirectly, via light shining through the opening as stars passed behind the ring.

pretty cool