{"id":4292,"date":"2015-08-18T00:13:37","date_gmt":"2015-08-18T04:13:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=4292"},"modified":"2015-08-24T12:19:33","modified_gmt":"2015-08-24T16:19:33","slug":"explaining-the-origin-of-shepherd-moons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/explaining-the-origin-of-shepherd-moons\/","title":{"rendered":"Explaining the origin of shepherd moons"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_4293\" style=\"width: 460px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/PIA07712.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4293\" class=\"wp-image-4293\" src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/PIA07712.jpg\" alt=\"Saturn's F ring and two shepherd satellites (inner Prometheus and outer Pandora) seen by Cassini spacecraft. Saturn is to the right of the image. (Image credit: NASA\/JPL\/Space Science Institute)\" width=\"450\" height=\"452\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/PIA07712.jpg 894w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/PIA07712-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/PIA07712-298x300.jpg 298w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/PIA07712-268x268.jpg 268w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4293\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Saturn&#8217;s F ring and two shepherd satellites (inner Prometheus and outer Pandora) seen by Cassini spacecraft. Saturn is to the right of the image. (Image credit: NASA\/JPL\/Space Science Institute)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The origin of \u201cshepherd moons\u201d in planetary rings such as those found on Saturn and Uranus may be a natural consequence of ring evolution around giant planets. Studying the two shepherd moons in Saturn\u2019s F ring system, Prometheus and Pandora, researchers has found how these moons may form.<\/p>\n<p>Using computer simulated collisions between icy moonlets the researchers found that the moonlets disintegrate in the collision, leaving a ring of icy debris, similar to what it is believe the F ring system is made of. However, if the moonlets have denser cores, they may only partially disintegrate, leaving behind two moons, matching observations made in the F ring system.<\/p>\n<p>An accompanying News &amp; Views article says that a similar process may explain features of the Uranian and Neptunian ring systems.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/press.nature.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/files\/2015\/08\/ngeo2508-aop.pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Original research paper<\/span><\/a>\u00a0published in\u00a0<em>Nature Geoscience\u00a0<\/em>on\u00a0<strong>August 17<\/strong><span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_453723367\"><span class=\"aQJ\"><strong>, 2015<\/strong>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em><strong>Names and affiliations of selected\u00a0author<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<h4>Ryuki Hyodo, Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Paris, France, and Department of Planetology, Kobe University, Japan<\/h4>\n<h4>Keiji Ohtsuki, Department of Planetology, Kobe University, Japan<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The origin of \u201cshepherd moons\u201d in planetary rings such as those found on Saturn and Uranus may be a natural consequence of ring evolution around giant planets. Studying the two shepherd moons in Saturn\u2019s F ring system, Prometheus and Pandora, researchers has found how these moons may form. Using computer simulated collisions between icy moonlets [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4293,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[1799,533],"class_list":["post-4292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-astrophysics","tag-space"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/PIA07712.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-17e","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4292"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4294,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4292\/revisions\/4294"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}