The Radial Distribution Of Water Ice And Reddening Material Across Saturn's Icy Satellites And Rings Retrieved From Cassini Vims Observations

Details The Radial Distribution Of Water Ice And Reddening Material Across Saturn's Icy Satellites And Rings Retrieved From Cassini Vims Observations The Radial Distribution Of Water Ice And Reddening Material Across Saturn's Icy Satellites And Rings Retrieved From Cassini Vims Observations

Oct 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010dps....42.0901f&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #42, #9.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.954

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

In the past few years we have retrieved the amount of water ice and red contaminant materials distributed across the Saturnian Icy satellites surfaces and Ring regions using Cassini-VIMS observations. These measurements highlight very striking differences among the Saturn system objects, which vary from the almost uncontaminated and water ice-rich surfaces of Enceladus and Calypso to the metal/organic-rich and red surfaces of Iapetus leading hemisphere and Phoebe. In this framework we have developed a method to compare surface composition versus radial distance from Saturn and satellites' densities. In the F ring environment, the inner minor satellites (Prometheus, Pandora, Janus and Epimetheus) have in average surface water ice abundance similar to C ring and Cassini division particles but with much less reddening contaminant. Although their orbits are close to the F-ring, Prometheus and Pandora have very striking differences in surface composition, Prometheus being very water ice-rich but at the same time very red at VIS wavelengths. These properties make it very similar to A-B ring particles while Pandora is bluer. Moving outwards, we see the effects of E ring particles generated by Enceladus plumes contaminated surfaces from Mimas up to Rhea. We found some differences between Tethys’ lagrangian moons, Calypso being much more water ice-rich and bluer with respect to Telesto. Among outer satellites (Hyperion, Iapetus and Phoebe) we observe a linear trend in both water ice decrease and in reddening, Hyperion being the reddest object of the population. This research is supported by an Italian Space Agency Grant.

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