Related papers: Free Unstable Modes and Massive Bodies in Saturn's…
Certain spiral density waves in Saturn's rings are generated through resonances with planetary normal modes, making them valuable probes of Saturn's internal structure. Previous research has primarily focused on the rotation rates of these…
Saturn's B ring is the most opaque ring in our solar system, but many of its fundamental parameters, including its total mass, are not well constrained. Spiral density waves generated by mean-motion resonances with Saturn's moons provide…
Saturn's C ring contains multiple spiral patterns that appear to be density waves driven by periodic gravitational perturbations. In other parts of Saturn's rings, such waves are generated by Lindblad resonances with Saturn's various moons,…
Seismology of the gas giants holds the potential to resolve long-standing questions about their internal structure and rotation state. We construct a family of Saturn interior models constrained by the gravity field and compute their…
Saturn's rings act as a system of innumerable test particles that are remarkably sensitive to periodic disturbances in the planet's gravitational field. We identify 15 additional density and bending waves in Saturn's C ring driven by the…
In this work, we model the radial density profile of the outer A ring of Saturn observed with Cassini cameras (Tiscareno & Harris 2018): An axisymmetric diffusion model has been developed, accounting for the outward viscous flow of the ring…
Recent studies of stellar occultations observed by the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) onboard the Cassini spacecraft have demonstrated that multiple spiral wave structures in Saturn's rings are probably generated by…
We present results from large-scale particle simulations of the viscous overstability in Saturn's rings. The overstability generates a variety of structure on scales covering a few hundred metres to several kilometres, including…
This paper addresses the fine-scale axisymmetric structure exhibited in Saturn's A and B-rings. We aim to explain both the periodic microstructure on 150-220m, revealed by the Cassini UVIS and RSS instruments, and the irregular variations…
Normal mode oscillations in Saturn excite density and bending waves in the C Ring, providing a valuable window into the planet's interior. Saturn's fundamental modes (f modes) excite the majority of the observed waves, while…
In a previous paper (Hedman and Nicholson 2013), we developed tools that allowed us to confirm that several of the waves in Saturn's rings were likely generated by resonances with fundamental sectoral normal modes inside Saturn itself. Here…
A new model for the shape of the prominent eccentric ringlet in the gap exterior to Saturn's B-ring is developed based on Cassini imaging observations taken over about 8 years. Unlike previous treatments, the new model treats each edge of…
We describe a powerful signal processing method, the continuous wavelet transform, and use it to analyze radial structure in Cassini ISS images of Saturn's rings. Wavelet analysis locally separates signal components in frequency space,…
The excitation of density and bending waves in Saturn's C ring by planetary oscillation modes presents a unique opportunity to learn about gas giant interiors and rotation. However, theoretical complications related to Saturn's rapid and…
The ejecta discharged by impacting meteorites can redistribute a planetary ring's mass and angular momentum. This `ballistic transport' of ring properties instigates a linear instability that could generate the 100--1000-km undulations…
Certain regions of Saturn's rings exhibit periodic opacity variations with characteristic radial wavelengths of up to a few hundred meters that have been attributed to viscous overstabilities. The Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer…
Saturn's C ring contains multiple structures that appear to be density waves driven by time-variable anomalies in the planet's gravitational field. Semi-empirical extensions of density wave theory enable the observed wave properties to be…
The Iapetus -1:0 nodal bending wave, the first spiral wave ever described in Saturn's rings, has been seen again for the first time in 29 years. We demonstrate that it is in fact the nodal bending wave, not the 1:0 apsidal density wave as…
Seismology allows for direct observational constraints on the interior structures of stars and planets. Recent observations of Saturn's ring system have revealed the presence of density waves within the rings excited by oscillation modes…
Saturn is ringing weakly. Exquisite data from the Cassini mission reveal the presence of f-mode oscillations as they excite density waves in Saturn's rings. These oscillations have displacement amplitudes of order a metre on Saturn's…