Physics
Scientific paper
Dec 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agufm.p34a..05t&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #P34A-05
Physics
0669 Scattering And Diffraction, 6265 Planetary Rings, 6964 Radio Wave Propagation, 6969 Remote Sensing
Scientific paper
The dynamic interplay of gravitational and collisional forces lead to the formation of gravitational wakes in Saturn's rings. Wakes, which were first studied on larger scales as they exist in galactic discs, manifest themselves as elongated clusters of ring particles. Dynamical studies have predicted the formation of wake structures in Saturn's A and B rings (H. Salo et al., Icarus 170, 2004) with periodicity on the order of hundreds of meters. This anisotropic variation in ring microstructure, while on too small a scale to have been measured directly in the past, has been cited as a potential cause of the quadropole azimuthal asymmetry observed in optical depth measurements of Ring A. Recently, we have shown that radio wave scattering from particle aggregate ring models is well-approximated by diffraction theory (Thomson et al., BAAS 2006). We now apply this proven method to the modeling of electromagnetic scattering from anisotropic particle distributions in the rings. Using a statistical approach, we characterize scattering behavior as a function of a small number of parameters inherent to the nature of the anisotropy. We study wakes in the course of our investigation, as they occupy a portion of the parameter space under study. Finally, we correlate the results of our theoretical study with observational data collected by the Cassini radio occultation experiment during the period of May-September 2005. We report an exciting new result: We have observed, for the first time, direct evidence for the existence of periodic microstructure in Rings A and B. It is possible to measure the periodicity and orientation of these periodic structures by analyzing their forward- scattered diffraction signatures, which are encoded in our received signal. The purity of the sinusoidal radio waves transmitted by the Cassini radio make it possible, in principle, to measure structural periodicity down to as little as several tens of meters.
Anabtawi Aseel
French Richard
Marouf Essam
Rappoport N.
Salo Heikki
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