Discovery of Saturn's Largest Ring

Details Discovery of Saturn's Largest Ring Discovery of Saturn's Largest Ring

Sep 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009dps....41.1901v&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #41, #19.01

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Spitzer MIPS scanning observations at 24 microns, aimed just inside the ansa of Phoebe's orbit, cross an emission feature that is consistent with the anticipated structure of a ring produced by the orbital evolution of impact debris from the satellite. The images reveal a dust band having a vertical extent of 35 saturnian radii. Dynamical considerations imply that this dust extends radially outward to 300 saturnian radii, making it the largest known planetary ring in the Solar System. The optical depth of this dust structure at the observed location is 6 x 10^-7; however, this value is dependent upon grain temperature and could differ by a factor of two. This material is likely created by impacts onto Phoebe, and must be greater than 10 microns in radius in order to retain the inclination of the parent moon. If the ring is composed entirely of 10 micron grains, we estimate the minimum ring mass at 1 x 10^12 kg, the equivalent of a satellite 1 km in diameter. All of this material could easily be ejected by a modest sized impact on Phoebe. Ten micron particles evolve inward under the influence of Poynting-Robertson drag in a few million years, while particles larger than a few centimeters remain resident in the ring. The evolution of grains from microns to millimeters is of particular interest since their inward orbital migration could explain the origin of dark material on the leading hemisphere of Iapetus.
Support for this work was provided by NASA through an award issued by JPL/Caltech.

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