Humans usually conceive the concept of the moon as a spherical space body that illuminates the light. However, when it comes to some mini-moons of Saturn, this traditional conception will be forced to change, as some of the tiny moons orbiting around the ringed planet are weirdly shaped.
"Rather than being spherical, the (moons) are blobby and ravioli-like, with material stuck around their equators," said NASA in a recent statement.
In the first glance, Saturn's moon Pan looks like a walnut, while another moon, Epimetheus resembles a potato.
NASA made this statement after analyzing images sent by Cassini spacecraft months before it burned up in Saturn's atmosphere.
In the study report, researchers also put forward a possible theory that could explain the weird shape of Saturn's moons. As per researchers, these moons might have attained these weird shapes due to dust and ice accumulation from Saturn's iconic rings.
"We found these moons are scooping up particles of ice and dust from the rings to form the little skirts around their equators. A denser body would be more ball-shaped because gravity would pull the material in," said Bonnie Buratti, a researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Linda Spilker, another researcher at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory revealed that studying more about these moons could unveil several mysteries associated with Saturn's iconic rings.
"Perhaps this process is going on throughout the rings, and the largest ring particles are also accreting ring material around them. Detailed views of these tiny ring moons may tell us more about the behavior of the ring particles themselves," said Spilker.
A few days back, due to the weird shape of Saturn's moon Pan, a self-proclaimed alien researcher had claimed that this space body is actually an extraterrestrial mothership.
Scott C Waring wrote on his website UFO Sightings Daily, "This disk moon doesn't appear to be a moon at all, but probably a space station that orbits Saturn. Notice the Saturn ring that is attached to it? "
"This ring is 100% proof that aliens on Saturn created this artificial moon to be a space station in orbit around the planet."
