Astronomers Learn Why Saturn’s Moons are Flattened

Two of Saturn’s small moons, Atlas and Pan, are much wider than they are tall. This is because they each have a ridge several kilometres high running across their equator.

Simulations suggest that material swept up from Saturn’s rings have formed these ridges.  Sebastien Charnoz of Denis Diderot University in Paris and his team believe that as Atlas and Pan travelled across the planes of the rings, particles from the rings would have accumulated on the ridges.

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