LORA, the first in-situ mission into an astrophysical disk: Saturn's rings.

Details LORA, the first in-situ mission into an astrophysical disk: Saturn's rings. LORA, the first in-situ mission into an astrophysical disk: Saturn's rings.

Sep 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008epsc.conf..619c&link_type=abstract

European Planetary Science Congress 2008, Proceedings of the conference held 21-25 September, 2008 in Münster, Germany. Online a

Mathematics

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Scientific paper

Saturn's rings are a perfect example of an astrophysical disk, exhibiting dynamical processes common to all disks and at all scales. Whereas they are observed since the XVIIth century, they are still poorly understood. What is their origin? What is their total mass? What is their lifetime? What is a ring particle? Is their accretion close to the rings' edge ?. To help answer these fundamental questions, a critical data would be direct in-situ images of the rings'micro-structure, down to 10 cm scale. In addition, direct observation of gravitational instabilities at ~50m scale would help better understand fundamental accretion processes that happened in our protoplanetary disk 4.5 Gy ago. Thus, we introduce the LORA mission (Landers On Rings Array): an array of nano-probes dropped into the rings and with a minimal payload (camera + communication system). The LORA mission could be part of a larger mission to Saturn. By carefully designing the trajectory to the rings, different questions could be easily answered. The nano-probes could explore different regions of the rings simultaneously, thus giving clues on the physics of particulate disks in different density regimes. We present the different options, and technological requirements of this simple mission to the most exotic object of our Solar System.

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