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Space

Mysterious streaks seen on Saturn’s moons could be ancient rings

By Adam Mann

12 December 2017

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

How did Dione get those marks?

NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Looking like claw marks from some giant space bird, peculiar parallel tracks on Saturn’s moons Dione and Rhea have researchers baffled.

“I feel like I’m going crazy trying to come up with an explanation,” says Emily Martin, a planetary scientist at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C., who presented her team’s work at a meeting of the 2017 American Geophysical Union in New Orleans, Louisiana, on 11 December.

Previous observers have spotted a few of these streaks before but none had ever systematically charted them.…

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