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takyon writes:

Cosmic ravioli and spaetzle

The small inner moons of Saturn look like giant ravioli and spaetzle. Their spectacular shape has been revealed by the Cassini spacecraft. For the first time, researchers of the University of Bern show how these moons were formed. The peculiar shapes are a natural outcome of merging collisions among similar-sized little moons as computer simulations demonstrate.

[...] Based on the current orbit of the moons and their orbital environment, the researchers were able to estimate that the impact velocities were of the order of a few 10 m/s. Simulating collisions in this range for various impact angles, they obtained various stable shapes similar to ravioli and spaetzle, but only for low impact angles. "If the impact angle is bigger than ten degrees, the resulting shapes are not stable anymore," says Adrien Leleu. Any duck-shaped object like comet [67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko] would fall apart because of Saturn's tides. "That is why Saturn's small moons look very different to comets that often have bilobed shapes," explains Martin Jutzi.

Also at Scientific American.

The peculiar shapes of Saturn's small inner moons as evidence of mergers of similar-sized moonlets (DOI: 10.1038/s41550-018-0471-7) (DX)

Related: Cassini Captures Best Ever Images of Saturn's Tiny Moon Pan
Cassini's Final Flyby of Atlas
Cassini Spacecraft Post-Mortem

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