December 23, 1995
The story of your birthday began billions of years before calendars existed, in furnaces of light and clouds of dust.
Prometheus, Pandora and Saturn's F Ring
Birthday · December 23, 1995
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
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APOD published December 23, 1995. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
The third and fourth innermost moons of Saturn were unexpectedly discovered to be gravitational "shepards." The inner moon Prometheus and the outer moon Pandora use their gravitational attraction to define Saturn's outermost ring. Were any of the smaller chunks of ice and rock that compose Saturn's F Ring to stray, the ring particle would be gravitationally pulled back into place by one of these passing moons. This complex interaction creates a ring structure with two narrow braids and several unusual knots.