Shapes and Kinematics of Eccentric Features in Saturn's C Ring and Cassini Division

Details Shapes and Kinematics of Eccentric Features in Saturn's C Ring and Cassini Division Shapes and Kinematics of Eccentric Features in Saturn's C Ring and Cassini Division

Jun 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006dda....37.0702s&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DDA meeting #37, #7.02; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.670

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

1

Scientific paper

Using high-resolution movies and azimuthal imaging scans with radial scales as fine as a few km and longitudinal resolutions as fine as a fraction of a degree, we examine the shapes and kinematics of a number of noncircular features in Saturn's rings.
In the C ring, the Maxwell ringlet, at 1.45 Rs, is consistent with a freely-precessing Keplerian ellipse whose inner and outer edge apses are aligned. The 1.470-Rs ringlet shows about 5 km of scatter about a mean semimajor axis, but no coherent pattern is discernible. The 1.495-Rs ringlet shows residuals of about 5 km about a mean semimajor axis, but appears more complicated than a freely-precessing ellipse.
The B-ring outer edge shows the expected two-lobed shape rotating with the mean motion of Mimas, but with periapse leading the satellite by about 28 deg. That m=2 solution yields high residuals, which might be explained by a three-lobed pattern rotating at about 505.5 deg/day. In addition to the dominant m=1 eccentric, freely-precessing elliptical mode, the multi-mode Huygens ringlet also shows an m=2 shape with a pattern speed equal to, and phase almost exactly opposite to, that of the B-ring outer edge, suggesting that it is influenced not only by Mimas, but perhaps also by the outer B-ring. There may also be an m=6 mode precessing at about 631 deg/day.

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