The 1995 Saturn Ring-Plane Crossings: Ring Thickness and Small Inner Satellites

Details The 1995 Saturn Ring-Plane Crossings: Ring Thickness and Small Inner Satellites The 1995 Saturn Ring-Plane Crossings: Ring Thickness and Small Inner Satellites

Sep 1996

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1996dps....28.1803p&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #28, #18.03; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 28, p.1124

Physics

Optics

2

Scientific paper

The May 22() th and August 10() th, 1995, Saturn ring-plane crossings by the Earth were observed from the 2-m and 1-m telescopes at Pic du Midi, the 2.2-m telescope of the University of Hawaii, and with the Adonis adaptive optics camera at the 3.6-m telescope of the European Southern Observatory (ESO). Observations were made with either a 0.9 mu m or 2.2 mu m (short K) methane band filter. The radial brightness profiles of the rings indicate that the outer F ring dominates the apparent edge-on thickness of the system, with a vertically integrated equivalent width of 0.8-1.0 km near a radius of 130,000 km. The photometric behaviors of the A, B, and C rings and of the Cassini Division have been analyzed using a classical radiative transfer code which includes illumination by the Sun and by the planet. The F ring is modelled as a physically thick ribbon (thickness h) composed of large particles embedded in dust. The observed profiles can be explained if the F ring is both optically thick (tau ~ 0.15-0.25), and physically thick (h at least ~ 1.5 km). The large particles dominate the F ring's photometric behavior in backscattered light. Constraints on the particle properties in the other rings have been derived. The dimming of the rings around August 10, 1995 provided ideal conditions to study the small inner satellites. Besides Janus, Epimetheus and Pandora, two unresolved objects were detected in the ESO frames. They have been identified with the objects 1995S5 and 1995S6, detected several hours later by the Hubble Space Telescope (Nicholson et al. 1996, Science 272, 509--515). Combining the ESO and HST data, we derive orbital and photometric parameters for these objects. In particular, we improve the orbital parameters of 1995S5, whose orbital radius is now close to that of the F ring.

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