Saturn's F Ring: Kinematics and Particle Sizes from Stellar Occultation Studies |
| |
Authors: | AS Bosh CB OlkinRG French PD Nicholson |
| |
Institution: | a Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona, 86001-4499, f1amanda@lowell.eduf1b Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona, 86001-4499c Department of Astronomy, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, 02481d Department of Astronomy, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 14853-6801 |
| |
Abstract: | The occultation of GSC5249-01240 by Saturn's rings was observed in a spectrally resolved mode using the Faint Object Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope. By combining these data with other occultation data, we have determined the inclination of the F ring to be 0.0065±0.0014 deg. Our inclined F ring orbit model explains an abrupt decrease in flux at the west ansa of the ring that was observed during the November 1995 ring-plane crossing as well as the nondetection of 1995 S5 during one set of observations in November 1995. The F ring's equivalent depth is found to have no significant dependence on wavelength between 0.27 and 0.74 μm, indicating the presence of a population of ring particles larger in size than ∼10 μm. This contrasts with the results from a previous analysis of Voyager images at various phase angles, in which the particles were determined to be predominantly submicron in size. The difference may be due to temporal or longitudinal variability within the ring. |
| |
Keywords: | planetary rings Saturn |
本文献已被 ScienceDirect 等数据库收录! |
|