Saturn's Rings are Fractal

TL;DR

This paper analyzes images of Saturn's rings from the Cassini mission and finds their fractal dimension to be approximately 1.6-1.7, providing evidence that the rings are fractal in nature.

Contribution

It presents the first convincing fractal analysis of actual images of Saturn's rings, confirming longstanding conjectures about their fractal structure.

Findings

Fractal dimension of Saturn's rings is about 1.6-1.7

Supports the hypothesis that Saturn's rings are fractal

Uses box-counting method on Cassini images

Abstract

Over the past few decades, various conjectures were advanced that Saturn's rings are Cantor-like sets, although no convincing fractal analysis of actual images has ever appeared. We focus on the images sent by the Cassini spacecraft mission: slide #42 "Mapping Clumps in Saturn's Rings" and slide #54 "Scattered Sunshine". Using the box-counting method, we determine the fractal dimension of rings seen here (and in several other images from the same source) to be consistently about 1.6~1.7. This supports many conjectures put forth over several decades that Saturn's rings are indeed fractal.