Classification of F Ring Features Observed in Cassini UVIS Occultations

Details Classification of F Ring Features Observed in Cassini UVIS Occultations Classification of F Ring Features Observed in Cassini UVIS Occultations

Oct 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010dps....42.1908m&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #42, #19.08; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.982

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

The Cassini Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) has observed 25 statistically significant F ring features in 91 occultations since July 2004. This work nearly doubles the number of features reported by Esposito et al. (2008). As the number of statistically significant features has grown, it has become useful to classify them for the purposes of cataloging. We define three categories: Moonlet, Core, and Icicle, which classify the shapes of features seen to date in the occultation profiles of the F ring. Two features fall into the Moonlet class. Each is opaque in its occultation, which makes them candidates for solid objects. We classify 17 of the significant observed features as Icicles, which partially block stellar signal for 22 m to just over 3.7 km along the radial expanse of the occultation. The density enhancements responsible for such signal attenuations are likely due to transient clumping of material, evidence that aggregations of material are ubiquitous in the F ring. Finally, the variety of core region shapes displays how even the general shape of the F ring is ever-changing. The core region of the F ring usually has a smooth U-shape to it, but the core region takes the shape of Ws and Vs in some occultation profiles.
Our lengthy observing campaign reveals possible states and possible causes of the observed structure through these three feature classes. We discuss the constraints on the dimensions of the physical objects responsible for the observed occultation features. We explore how opacity and shape differences among the observed features may be related to the porosities of aggregates in the F ring.
This research was supported by the Cassini Project.

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