Saturn's F Ring A Spiral

I thought that this article ( Click Here) summed it up pretty nicely. Since Voyager's return, they have analyzed the video, and discovered that Saturn's Rings are actually a spiral.

"These strands, initially interpreted as concentric ring segments, are in fact connected and form a single one-arm trailing spiral winding at least three times around Saturn," Charnoz and colleagues write in the Nov. 25 issue of the journal Science.

How could we not have discovered this before? Did we really lack the technology? Any thoughts? I have dabbled in astronomy for years, and I found this extremely interesting.

EDIT: Spelling.

[edit on 28-11-2005 by Rouschkateer]

MOD EDIT: Changing a misleading title. See my note below.

[edit on 11/28/2005 by cmdrkeenkid]

I think it was theorized, but we never had any photos with enough resolution to prove the theory.
Pretty cool..The Rings are really A RING..
Like an old vinyl LP...GROOVY..

LOL - ~~Grooooovey~~~~ indeed.


Just, the telescopic powers we possess, and the satellite images we study, I would have epxected this discovery years ago. Odd, but fascinating!

That's really interesting, great find!

And I think that before jumping to any conclusions that the other two further rings out should be studied as well. I'm sure they will be, but it would be really interesting to see if those rings do or do not have a similar structure.

Also, I'm going to edit the title of your thread, since it's a bit misleading. It gives the idea that all the rings are wound in a spiral and not just the F Ring.

Thanks for that.

I was hoping for more than one of the rings as well, but perhaps only time will tell....