‘Ring Current’ Rotation

This series of Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument images shows the energetic neutral atom emission from Saturn's ring current. The sun is to lower left (X axis), and the orbits of the moons Titan, Rhea and Dione, and Saturn’s rings, are shown. The pronounced asymmetry (bright emission in the upper quadrant, located between midnight and dawn) rotates with the planet, and the bright spot rotates through 360 degrees over one Saturn rotation (about 10 hours and 40 minutes).

Credit:  NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (NASA/JPL/JHUAPL)

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