Related papers: Kronoseismology: Using density waves in Saturn's C…
The origin of rings around giant planets remains elusive. Saturn's rings are massive and made of 90-95% of water ice. In contrast, the much less massive rings of Uranus and Neptune are dark and likely to have higher rock fraction. Here we…
We describe the prediction, design, execution and calibration of stellar and solar occultation observations of Saturn's rings by the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) instrument on the Cassini spacecraft. Particular attention…
Seismology applied to giant planets could drastically change our understanding of their deep interiors, as it has happened with the Earth, the Sun, and many main-sequence and evolved stars. The study of giant planets' composition is…
Saturn possesses a dynamically rich system containing numerous moons and impressive rings. Whether the rings of Saturn are much younger than the planet itself has been a long-open question; more recently a young age has been proposed for…
Regarding tidal dissipation in Saturn, usually parameterized by Saturn's quality factor Q, there remains a discrepancy between conventional estimates and the latest determination that has been derived from astrometric observations of…
Kilometer-sized moonlets in Saturn's A ring create S-shaped wakes called "propellers" in surrounding material. The Cassini spacecraft has tracked the motions of propellers for several years and finds that they deviate from Keplerian orbits…
The density-wave theory of galactic spiral-arm structure makes a striking prediction that the pitch angle of spiral arms should vary with the wavelength of the galaxy's image. The reason is that stars are born in the density wave but move…
We examine Saturn's atmosphere with observations from ground-based telescopes and Hubble Space Telescope (HST). We present a detailed analysis of observations acquired during 2018. A system of polar storms that appeared in the planet in…
Quantifying tidal effects on giant planets has recently made significant advances, thanks in particular to the Cassini space probe. During its thirteen-year orbit around Saturn, numerous measurements from different instruments made it…
The dynamics of Saturn's F Ring have been a matter of curiosity ever since Voyagers 1 and 2 sent back pictures of the ring's unusual features. Some of these images showed three distinct ringlets with the outer two displaying a kinked and…
Small (~50km scale), irregular features seen in Cassini images to be emanating from Saturn's F ring have been termed mini-jets by Attree et al. (2012). One particular mini-jet was tracked over half an orbital period, revealing its evolution…
We analyze formation of grand-design two-arm spiral structure in the nuclear regions of disk galaxies. Such morphology has been recently detected in a number of objects using high-resolution near-infrared observations. Motivated by the…
We present numerically-derived orbits and mass estimates for the inner Saturnian satellites, Atlas, Prometheus, Pandora, Janus and Epimetheus from a fit to 2580 new Cassini ISS astrometric observations spanning February 2004 to August 2013.…
The first observations of Saturn's visible-wavelength aurora were made by the Cassini camera. The aurora was observed between 2006 and 2013 in the northern and southern hemispheres. The color of the aurora changes from pink at a few hundred…
The origin of Saturn's rings has been debated for decades. Measurements from Voyager and Cassini have suggested that the rings could be as young as ~100 Myr and composed of nearly pure water ice. Several scenarios have been proposed to…
Since 2004, observations of Saturn's F ring have revealed that the ring's core is surrounded by structures with radial scales of hundreds of kilometers, called "spirals" and "jets". Gravitational scattering by nearby moons was suggested as…
Saturn's quasi-periodic planet-encircling storms are the largest convecting outbursts in the Solar System. The last eruption was in 1990. A new eruption started in December 2010 and presented the first-ever opportunity to observe such…
Radio synchrotron emission is a powerful tool to study the strength and structure of magnetic fields in galaxies. Unpolarized synchrotron emission traces isotropic turbulent fields which are strongest in spiral arms and bars (20-30 \mu G)…
Most star formation in the local Universe occurs in spiral galaxies, but their origin remains an unanswered question. Various theories have been proposed to explain the development of spiral arms, each predicting different spatial…
The innovative Saturn Ring Skimmer mission concept enables a wide range of investigations that address fundamental questions about Saturn and its rings, as well as giant planets and astrophysical disk systems in general. This mission would…