Among all the strange things about Saturn ’s rings one of the strangest are the mysterious radial “ spokes ” in its B Ring .
At first opinion to be because of the same form of gravitational interactions between Saturn , its moons and the ringing material that create the innumerous division in the closed chain , entropy assemble by the Cassini spacecraft in 2005 established that the spokes are because of the major planet ’s magnetic airfield .
The spokes are generally thought to have been first keep by the Voyager spacecraft during their flybys of Saturn in the other eighties ( top image ) That they are not a transient characteristic was prove by recent figure returned by the Cassini space vehicle , where they appear as bright streak on the B band ( below ) .
There is no question but that these features in the B mob are quite tangible and not any sort of ocular illusion .
Although the wheel spoke were a surprise to scientist when they get word the first Voyager exposure of them , they may have actually been observe for more than a century . But these early observations only add to the mystery of the spokes . The secret is that although the stellate spokes observed in the 19th and former 20th century resemble the Voyager spokes in every direction — for case , they are radial and usually tapered , sometimes calorie-free and sometimes dark — they were in the wrong closed chain .
Instead of seem in the broad B band as in the Voyager and Cassini images , the early visual astronomer sketch them in the outer A tintinnabulation . They show up in lottery create as late as 1960 . Many of these are by such expert and knowledgeable observers as E.M. Antoniadi and Lucien Rudaux .
Carolyn Porco , drawing card of the imaging science squad on the Cassini mission , believe that the “ spokes ” consider by the optical observers were only “ an optical effect of observing the azimuthal imbalance and the slope of brightness around the A gang . The human eye tends to shoot straight lines into a slope in ocular cleverness , and there is an azimuthal one in the A band , so it makes horse sense . We ’ve had more than 25 years between Voyager and Cassini , with Hubble Space Telescope Observations in between , and in all representative , the spokes are in the B vitamin ring . It ’s hard to imagine why they would change to the A anchor ring on rare juncture . ”
In other words , while the spokes photographed by Voyager and Cassini are unquestionably real physical feature article the spokes take note by solid ground - based astronomers are actually an ocular conjuration .
While this certainly makes sense , the ocular illusion explanation has never , to the best of my cognition , been put to the test … for illustration , in the agency that Edward Maunder successfully tested the optical illusion possibility of Mars ’ channel in 1903 . Nor does it seem to answer why the early commentator saw “ spokes ” only in the A Ring when there are gradient of smartness in the other ring as well . Perhaps the B Ring is too uniformly bright and the inner C Ring too dim .
It is true that since optical illusions can subjective some people may see rundle during a trial and others may not . However , if in such a test even a few somebody saw marking similar to those observed by the visual stargazer that would for sure suggest that the A Ring “ spokes ” are in fact as illusory as were the Martian duct .
SaturnScienceSpace
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