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Chrysalis, the lost moon that gave Saturn its rings
Artistic rendering of the moon Chrysalis disintegrating in Saturn’s intense gravity field. The chunks of icy rock eventually collided and shattered into smaller pieces that became distributed in the thin ring we see today. (Image credit B. Militzer and NASA) A team including Burkhard Militzer, UC Berkeley professor of earth and planetary science and astronomy, has proposed a detailed theory that explains the origin of the rings of Saturn.