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Originally Posted by Argos
from the link Informant provided:
It was expected that collisions between ring particles would tend to make the rings uniform, but Voyager I found changing structures in the radial direction that are termed "spokes". Some of this structure is shown in the adjacent animation. Here is a smoother and longer movie of the same phenomenon. It is thought that gravitational forces alone cannot account for the spoke structure, and it has been proposed that electrostatic repulsion between ring particles may play a role.
It also occurs to me that the availability of radiation at 1 au from the Sun is many times greater than that at the distance of Saturn.
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The spokes rotate with Saturn's rotational period and also would defy Kepler's law if they had something to do with gravity. AFAIK, it's some interaction between the magnetic field of Saturn and charged particles in the rings when they leave Saturn's shadow.
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"Flying in space is risky business, but just staying on this planet is risky business too." - John Young, astronaut
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