Saturn's F Ring As Seen By Cassini UVIS

Details Saturn's F Ring As Seen By Cassini UVIS Saturn's F Ring As Seen By Cassini UVIS

Sep 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008dps....40.2406a&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #40, #24.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 40, p.430

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

1

Scientific paper

We present stellar occultation data of Saturn's F ring obtained by the Cassini Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) with spatial resolutions ranging between a few and tens of meters. Living up to its reputation the ring reveals a high variability in azimuth, radius, and time. The only feature persistent in time is the F ring core that is well fit by a Lorentzian profile. Peak normal optical depth and radial equivalent width (radially integrated optical depth) vary between 0.1 and 5 and 5 and 60 km, respectively. A new orbital fit based on Voyager PPS and Cassini UVIS HSP data differs from a previous orbit solution (Bosh et al.(2002, Icarus)). Despite its variablity the F ring is well described by a precessing ellipse with a semimajor axis about 15 km inward of the Bosh solution.
In more recent data, a previously unseen feature is comparable in optical depth and shape to the core. Sometimes even optically thicker than the core it is found at variable radial distances on average about 200 km radially inward. Additionally, a periodic structure in the F ring core with a wavelength of about 250 m was observed in one of the latest occultations. These short periodic oscillations are compatible with a gravitational perturbation of a 100-200 meter-sized moonlet a few km outside the core.

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