There were photographs of Pan, a tiny moonlet within Saturn's "A" ring.
The arc is thought to contain matter equivalent to a small icy moonlet about a hundred metres in diameter.
This does not include the hundreds of moonlets comprising the rings.
However, a few moonlets must still be embedded within the rings at present.
The belts of the parent moonlets and particles are themselves invisible due to their low optical depth, while the dust reveals itself in forward-scattered light.
One possible explanation is that the ring has an azimuthal wave-like structure, excited by a small moonlet just inside it.
The narrow main rings and the moonlet belts that create dust bands are expected to differ in particle size distribution.
It is not clear whether it is only a transient clump of dust, or if there is a solid moonlet at its core.
The moonlets themselves are tiny, ranging from about 40 to 500 meters in diameter, and are too small to be seen directly.
