Related papers: The B-ring's surface mass density from hidden dens…
Spokes are localized clouds of fine particles that appear over the outer part of Saturn's B ring. Over the course of the Cassini Mission, the Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) obtained over 20,000 images of the outer B ring, providing the…
(Abridged) The following describes a model of a broad planetary ring whose sharp edge is confined by a satellite's m^th Lindblad resonance (LR). This model uses a streamline formalism to calculate the ring's internal forces, namely, ring…
The appearance of debris disks around distant stars depends upon the scattering/phase function (SPF) of the material in the disk. However, characterizing the SPFs of these extrasolar debris disks is challenging because only a limited range…
The Phoebe ring, Saturn's largest and faintest ring, lies far beyond the planet's well-known main rings. It is primarily sourced by collisions with Saturn's largest irregular satellite Phoebe, perhaps through stochastic macroscopic…
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…
A new symplectic N-body integrator is introduced, one designed to calculate the global 360 degree evolution of a self-gravitating planetary ring that is in orbit about an oblate planet. This freely-available code is called epi_int, and it…
Image photometry reveals that the F ring is approximately twice as bright during the Cassini tour as it was during the Voyager flybys of 1980 and 1981. It is also three times as wide and has a higher integrated optical depth. We have…
We describe a model that accounts for the complex morphology of spiral density waves raised in Saturn's rings by the co-orbital satellites, Janus and Epimetheus. Our model may be corroborated by future Cassini observations of these…
We present a photometric model of the rings of Saturn which includes the main rings and an F ring, inclined to the main rings, with a Gaussian vertical profile of optical depth. This model reproduces the asymmetry in brightness between the…
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…
We present a study of the behavior of Saturn's A ring outer edge, using images and occultation data obtained by the Cassini spacecraft over a period of 8 years from 2006 to 2014. More than 5000 images and 170 occultations of the A ring…
The thermal inertia values of Saturn's main rings (the A, B, and C rings and the Cassini division) are derived by applying our thermal model to azimuthally scanned spectra taken by the Cassini Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS). Model…
The satellite Mimas launches a bending wave -- a warping of the rings that propagates radially through self-gravity -- at the 5:3 inner vertical resonance with Saturn's rings. We present a modification of the linear bending wave theory…
Images obtained by the Cassini spacecraft between 2012 and 2015 reveal a periodic brightness variation in a region of Saturn's D ring that previously appeared to be rather featureless. Furthermore, the intensity and radial wavenumber of…
We report observations of stripe-like features in Enceladus' plumes captured simultaneously by Cassini's VIMS-IR and ISS NAC instruments during flyby E17, with similar patterns seen in VIMS-IR data from flyby E13 and E19. These parallel…
The $\eta$ ring is one of the narrow rings of Uranus, consisting of a dense core that is 1-2 km wide and a diffuse outer sheet spanning about 40 km. Its dense core lies just exterior to the 3:2 Inner Lindblad Resonance of the small moon…
We report the first unambiguous detection of X-ray emission originating from Saturn with a Chandra observation, duration 65.5 ksec with ACIS-S3. Beyond the pure detection we analyze the spatial distribution of X-rays on the planetary…
The origin and evolution of Saturn's rings is critical to understanding the Saturnian system as a whole. Here, we discuss the physical and chemical composition of the rings, as a foundation for evolutionary models described in subsequent…
The Cassini mission provided key measurements needed to determine the absolute age of Saturn's rings, including the extrinsic micrometeoroid flux at Saturn, the volume fraction of non-icy pollutants in the rings, and the total ring mass.…
Saturn's rings, reminiscent of an early Solar System present a unique opportunity to investigate experimentally some mechanisms thought to be responsible for planet and planetesimal formation in protoplanetary discs. Here we extended the…