Cassini UVIS Ring Occultations: Standard PDS Data Products and Examples of Small-Scale Structures

Details Cassini UVIS Ring Occultations: Standard PDS Data Products and Examples of Small-Scale Structures Cassini UVIS Ring Occultations: Standard PDS Data Products and Examples of Small-Scale Structures

Sep 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009dps....41.1809c&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #41, #18.09

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

The Cassini spacecraft's Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) includes a high speed photometer (HSP) that has observed more than 100 stellar occultations by Saturn's rings. These observations provide measurements of ring structure that approaches the scale of the largest common ring particles. The combination of multiple occultations at different viewing geometries enables reconstruction of the three-dimensional structure of the rings. This inversion of the occultation data depends on accurate calibration of the data so that occultations of different stars taken at different times and under different viewing conditions can be combined. Here we document a standardized technique applied to the UVIS-HSP ring occultation datasets that are being delivered to the Planetary Data System. We provide examples of the structure of the rings as seen from occultations at different incidence angles to the rings, illustrating changes in the apparent structure with viewing geometry. The large number of occultations has also found a number of azimuthally-limited features in the rings even beyond the highly dynamic F ring. We describe some of these features found in the A, B, and C rings and Cassini Division that are likely transient structures due to the short time-scale for Keplerian shear and collisional disruption of particle aggregates. This research was supported by NASA through the Cassini Data Analysis Program and the Cassini project.

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