--- title: NASA: Saturn's Weirdest Ring | TIME description: Watch: NASA: Saturn's Weirdest Ring explained canonical: https://time.com/video/6fsAPrCy/ og:title: NASA: Saturn's Weirdest Ring og:description: Watch: NASA: Saturn's Weirdest Ring explained og:url: https://time.com/video/6fsAPrCy/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/6fsAPrCy/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: NASA: Saturn's Weirdest Ring twitter:description: Watch: NASA: Saturn's Weirdest Ring explained twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/6fsAPrCy/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # NASA: Saturn's Weirdest Ring > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Subscription: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME is a general-interest news organization founded in 1923, reporting on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: NASA: Saturn's Weirdest Ring [Watch (HLS stream): NASA: Saturn's Weirdest Ring](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/6fsAPrCy.m3u8) (2:07)  _Published 2012-05-01. Watch: NASA: Saturn's Weirdest Ring explained_ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:24 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [End of Mission for the Cassini Saturn Probe ](/video/CnfXMPms/) ### End of Mission for the Cassini Saturn Probe [In Saturn's Rings](/video/zVaEeiL8/) ### In Saturn's Rings [Hurricane on Saturn](/video/dmNpqwhl/) ### Hurricane on Saturn --- ## Transcript I think the F- ring is Saturn's weirdest ring. We have a new analysis of images obtained by Cassini that show the F- ring is actually even more dynamic than we thought. And for the first time we can see some of the havoc wreaked by objects about a kilometer in diameter. This movie shows the trail of one of the 500 or so tiny objects that we see punching through parts of the F- ring. We've highlighted the areas where these trails can be seen. These are slow speed collisions. Perhaps just a few meters per second. But they drive these glittering ice particles out of the F- ring with them. Because even scientists have been calling these trails mini jets. They look tiny because in the full image you're looking along about 10, 000 kilometers of the F- ring. There's a lot of serendipity involved. We're actually concentrating on Prometheus. What we didn't notice at the time was one of these tiny little trails, that sort of sneaked into the field of view But now we've done things a bit more methodically, we've actually looked at about 20, 000 images. And, we find lots of these little guys, and some of them, we just, caught in the act. So far we've seen about 500, of these, objects, and ex scene images, some of them may even be, the same object. What's important about these images is that, these little guys are the missing link We know what Prometheus does. Prometheus creates channels, ripples, snowballs in the F- ring. But what we didn't know is what happened to these snowballs after they were created. We know also that Prometheus can probably destroy some of these things, just like it can create them. And, can also change the orbits. But now we've got evidence that some of the little guys actually survive. I think I want to punch through the F- ring on their own. Essentially we're taking our images of the F- ring, removing the planet, and exaggerating the radial scale. Thanks to Cassini, we can study all this activity on the F- ring over time. Even during the time that Cassini's been at Saturn, the air frame keeps changing. It's the only thing you can rely on, the F- ring. 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