Bleriot Propeller Close-up

This view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows Cassini's best image of the propeller feature known informally as Bleriot. The propeller is named after Louis Bleriot, the French engineer and aviator who in 1909 was the first person to fly across the English Channel. This is the third and final propeller to be targeted for a close flyby observation during Cassini's ring-grazing orbits (the period from Nov. 2016 to April 2017 when Cassini's orbit passed just outside the main rings). Because propellers are seen in the outermost parts of the main rings, the ring-grazing orbits provided Cassini's best opportunity to see them up close. Many small, bright specks and linear, scratch-like artifacts are visible in the image. These artifacts are due to cosmic rays and particles of radiation near the planet striking the camera detector during the exposure. Bleriot is the largest of the propellers in Saturn's rings. The wavy features embedded in the propeller structure indicate that its central moonlet is some 60 percent wider than that of Santos-Dumont, which means the Bleriot moonlet is about four times more massive. Cassini scientists have been tracking the orbit of this object for the past d

Date

2017-05-10

Photographer / author

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Collection

JPL

Archive

NASA Image and Video Library

Type

photograph

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