Other
Scientific paper
Nov 1996
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1996icar..124..220d&link_type=abstract
Icarus, Volume 124, Issue 1, pp. 220-236.
Other
10
Scientific paper
The bombardment of planetary rings by meteoroids has several important consequences for ring structure. In earlier papers, we studied ballistic transport, the net radial transport of mass and angular momentum due to exchanges of meteoroid impact ejecta. Several additional mechanisms which can affect ring structure are introduced by the systematic deposition of meteoroid mass and angular momentum and other nonconservative processes. We refer to these collectively as ``direct'' effects of meteoroids. They include the mass deposition itself, radial drifts due to mass loading and/or loss of ejecta angular momentum, and radial drifts due to torques caused by asymmetric absorption of the meteoroids. In this paper, we calculate deposition rates and radial drifts for Saturn's rings as a function of ring radius and optical depth. We then include them in our ballistic transport code and examine their influence on simulations of the B ring inner-edge region. In all cases, we find that, of the three direct meteoroid effects, it is the radial drifts due to mass loading or angular momentum loss which dominate the additional contributions. For input parameters which give the best fit to structures actually observed near the inner B ring edge, the direct effects are relatively negligible, except for a secular inward drift of the edge and an additional constraint on the allowable range of various uncertain physical input parameters. Our conclusions in earlier papers about the ability of ballistic transport to explain many of the characteristic inner-edge structures are unaffected. Although locally unimportant, the radial drifts due to mass loading can cause major portions of Saturn's ring system to fall into Saturn within a Solar System lifetime. The problem is most severe for the C ring, which should drift into Saturn in approximately a few x 10^8 years.
Bode Paul W.
Cuzzi Jeffrey N.
Dull James D.
Durisen Richard H.
Dyck Stanley G.
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