#shepherd moons

(Or some of them, at least)

After reuniting with his moons, Saturn has the opportunity to meet some of the small innermost moons that help shape and maintain his rings. But they remember more than he does about the origins of his ring system and aren't sure if it's the right time to remind him of the details.

I imagine Saturn trying to focus on anything within his rings is akin to us trying to focus on the tip of our nose: it's tough to do and things get blurry. It isn't unreasonable for him to not know what's going on closer to his body, not only because it's hard to see things that close but especially since he's so much bigger than his moons. How much of their activity can he even feel?

This is my attempt at a comic version of the old "educational" short episodes they used to have. It seems like they're trying to do that sort of content with their YouTube shorts now, but I liked it better when they had the characters talking to one another rather than just a narration over animation.

Saturns shepherd moons are always maintaining the rings; and that’s why we never see them in the show. They’re too tired when dragged out of orbit to do anything other than nap!

𝗡𝗔𝗦𝗔’𝗦 𝗩𝗢𝗬𝗔𝗚𝗘𝗥 𝟭 𝗟𝗔𝗨𝗡𝗖𝗛𝗘𝗗 𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗢 𝗦𝗣𝗔𝗖𝗘 🚀

On this day in 1977, NASA launched Voyager 1 on a grand tour of the solar system!

Along its journey, it made groundbreaking discoveries about the gas giants and has since ventured beyond the solar system, continuing to explore the mysterious interstellar space.

During its travels, Voyager 1 made some awesome discoveries.

When it flew by the giant planet Jupiter in 1979, it found a thin ring circling the planet and spotted two new tiny moons named Thebe and Metis.

Then, in 1980, Voyager 1 visited the ringed planet Saturn and uncovered even more secrets!

It found a new ringlet called the G-ring and three little "shepherd" moons — Prometheus, Pandora and Atlas — that help keep Saturn's rings in place.

After finishing its planetary mission, the intrepid Voyager 1 just kept going and going.

In 1998, it became the farthest human-made object from Earth.

Today, it is now located more than 23 billion kilometers from Earth, outside the solar system.

𝗪𝗛𝗬 𝗗𝗢𝗘𝗦 𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗦 𝗠𝗔𝗧𝗧𝗘𝗥?

Voyager 1 a pioneering spacecraft that provided groundbreaking data on Jupiter and Saturn, became the first to enter interstellar space in 2012, and remains the most distant human-made object.

It also carries a golden record as a message to extraterrestrial life.