This new picture of Saturn’s rings from the Cassini spacecraft show the same phenomenon that I observe with the stellar occultation measurements described elsewhere. Notice how the brightness of the B ring varies between the bottom and top of the picture. Fingerlike clumps of particles are believed to be the cause of this asymmetry, and I have posted a prediction for our next stellar occultation measurement based on one model of this clumps, called “self-gravity wakes”.
According to Colwell
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Oh, dear. That caption needed a bit more re-writing than it got, I see. We at first thought it was the near-arm/far-arm asymmetry, but a closer inspection showed that the real culprit is planet-shine on the rings. The self-gravity wakes may be important to that, but we’re not sure yet.
Cassini imaging team member John Weiss, above, clarifies the explanation for this picture. While it’s still a very cool picture, there’s more going on here than the self-gravity wakes.