Analysis of the Radial Structure of Saturn's F Ring

Details Analysis of the Radial Structure of Saturn's F Ring Analysis of the Radial Structure of Saturn's F Ring

Sep 1996

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1996dps....28.1808g&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #28, #18.08; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 28, p.1125

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We have cataloged all examples of radial structure in the Voyager images of Saturn's F ring. There is insufficient high-resolution coverage to determine whether or not there were fundamental changes in the radial structure between the Voyager encounters. Several Voyager 2 images of the F ring show that it is composed of at least four separate, non-intersecting strands extending ~ 45(deg) in longitude; the two brightest components are the central pair. In contrast, some Voyager 1 images show apparent intersections of two bright strands giving rise to a "braided" appearance with a faint inner strand. A single high-resolution Voyager 1 image of the F ring shows two bright parallel strands with a faint outer strand; this configuation was also detectable in a sequence of low-resolution images. Orbits were fitted to each strand by assuming that the two brightest strands in the Voyager 1 images corresponded to those in the Voyager 2 images. The maximum separation in semimajor axes of the four strands is ~ 300 km. Their orbits suggest that they have comparable eccentricities and nearly aligned pericenters. We believe this configuration could be maintained if the main strand contains sufficient mass. Cassini observations of any differential precession of the strands could be used to constrain the mass of the F ring core.

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