POTENTIAL BIRTH OF A MOON OF SATURN

Images captured last year by NASA's Cassini spacecraft of a small icy object within the outermost ring of Saturn may be evidence of the first stages of the formation of a new moon.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140414180358.htm

The object is small - 750 miles long by 6 miles wide.

The report's lead author, Carl Murray of Queen Mary University of London, said 'We have not seen anything like this before. We may be looking at the act of birth, where this object is just leaving the rings and heading off to be a moon in its own right.'

The theory of the origin of Saturn's moons proposes that initially Saturn had a massive ring formation capable of giving birth to large moons. As the ring material depleted in this way, newly formed moons became smaller. The largest moons formed earlier, and are further away from the planet.

Cassini may have another opportunity to get more detailed images of the new object in late 2016, which could provide further evidence of the formation mechanism of Saturn's moon system.