Radar Imaging of Saturn's Rings.

Details Radar Imaging of Saturn's Rings. Radar Imaging of Saturn's Rings.

Sep 2002

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002dps....34.2404n&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS Meeting #34, #24.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 34, p.883

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

The first radar echoes from Saturn's rings were obtained at a wavelength of 12.6 cm by Goldstein and Morris (1973). In October 1999 we used a frequency-stepped technique similar to that used in the mid-70s by Ostro etal. (1982) to make the first true radar images of the rings. In November 2000 and again in December 2001 we repeated this experiment, using the Arecibo S-band radar. With a pulse length of 70 msec, the range resolution of these data is 10,000 km; the Doppler spectra were processed to a frequency resolution of 2 kHz, corresponding to a radial resolution at the ring ansae of 2000 km. To date we have obtained images at ring opening angles B of -19.9, -23.6 and -25.9 deg. Images from all three years show a pronounced azimuthal asymmetry in the ring reflectivity, which is seen in both circular polarizations. The analogous phenomenon at visual wavelengths is ascribed to gravitational `wakes' generated by individual large ring particles, which are distorted by keplerian shear into elongated structures trailing at angles of 70 deg from the radial direction (Franklin and Colombo 1978). Such wakes are diagnostic of the rings' gravitational stability parameter, Q, and are expected to have characteristic length scales of 30-100 m in the A ring. To the radar, the rings appear brighter when the wakes are seen sideways, and fainter when they are viewed end-on. Fits of a numerical model by Salo and Karjalainen (1999) to our data show that the asymmetry is concentrated in the A ring, where its amplitude is 25% of the average reflectivity. This is twice the model prediction --- which is based on a dynamical simulation employing a realistic ring particle size distribution used as input to a Monte Carlo light scattering code --- and about three times the amplitude measured in HST images obtained at a wavelength of 439 nm and the same opening angle. The large amplitude of the radar asymmetry is difficult to reproduce with current models, although the phase of the asymmetry is within 7 deg of that predicted by the models. This work is supported by NASA's PG&G program.

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