The cameras on high-speed probes often do some kind of sweep to get sharp images of something as they pass rapidly by a target. This is pre-calculated. If something isn't moving exactly according to calculation, I suspect it would get "time exposed" a little bit. It's hard to tell if the rings around the object are "blurred" this way because their features tend to be horizontal already.
This is obviously a slightly-off exposure of a spherical moon, or it would have been reproduced in many other photos by eager operators by now. These first shots are from 2008.
What's cool about these pictures is that the inside rings, which move faster than the moon, get messed up as they go by the moon, so the distortions are ahead of the moon. The outer rings, which orbit more slowly than the moon, get messed up in the moon's wake.
Space/Science » in reply to Why is the assumption that it is an actual cylinder?
We're just having fun with it.
The whole thread (35 posts)
- An interesting "thing" in the 35 km wide Keeler gap around Saturn
- Two likely end-members
- "Explanation"?
- Finally! Justification for manned mission to Saturn!
- Um...are there three of them? (n/t)
- Or is it emitting Whale sounds LOL!
- re: Um...are there three of them?