相关论文: Saturn's Rings are Fractal

This study is motivated by the observation, based on photographs from the Cassini mission, that Saturn's rings have a fractal structure in radial direction. Accordingly, two questions are considered: (1) What Newtonian mechanics argument in…

The origin and long-term evolution of Saturn's rings is still an unsolved problem in modern planetary science. In this chapter we review the current state of our knowledge on this long-standing question for the main rings (A, Cassini…

The true reason for partition of the Saturn ring as well as rings of other planets into great many of sub-rings is found. This reason is the theorem of Zelikin-Lokutsievskiy-Hildebrand about fractal structure of solutions to generic…

As it has already done for Earth, the sun, and the stars, seismology has the potential to radically change the way the interiors of giant planets are studied. In a sequence of events foreseen by only a few, observations of Saturn's rings by…

Saturn's main rings exhibit variations in both their opacity and spectral properties on a broad range of spatial scales, and the correlations between these parameters can provide insights into the processes that shape the composition and…

In the last few years Cassini-VIMS, the Visible and Infared Mapping Spectrometer, returned to us a comprehensive view of the Saturn's icy satellites and rings. After having analyzed the satellites' spectral properties (Filacchione et al.…

Saturn's rings consist of a huge number of water ice particles, with a tiny addition of rocky material. They form a flat disk, as the result of an interplay of angular momentum conservation and the steady loss of energy in dissipative…

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…

Saturn's diffuse E ring consists of many tiny (micron and sub-micron) grains of water ice distributed between the orbits of Mimas and Titan. Various gravitational and non-gravitational forces perturb these particles' orbits, causing the…

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…

The best constraints on the internal structures of giant planets have historically come from measurements of their gravity fields. These gravity data are inherently mostly sensitive to a planet's outer regions, providing only loose…

Previous investigations of Saturn's outer D ring (73,200-74,000 km from Saturn's center) identified periodic brightness variations whose radial wavenumber increased linearly over time. This pattern was attributed to a vertical corrugation,…

Some wave features found in the C-ring of Saturn appear to be excited by resonances with normal mode oscillations of the planet. The waves are found at locations in the rings where the ratio of orbital to oscillation frequencies is given by…

The alignment of Saturn's magnetic pole with its rotation axis precludes the use of magnetic field measurements to determine its rotation period. The period was previously determined from radio measurements by the Voyager spacecraft to be…

On June 12, 2007 the Cassini probe sent the images of a small moon of Saturn called Atlas which is located between the ring A and the small ring R/2004 S 1. These images have shown that the Atlas morphology is very different from other…

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,…

Observations of the November 1995 Sun crossing of the Saturn's ring-plane made with the 3.6m CFH telescope, using the UHAO adaptive optics system, are presented here. We report the detection of four arcs located in the vicinity of the F…

Aims. To investigate the mid-infrared (MIR) characteristics of Saturn's rings. Methods. We collected and analyzed MIR high spatial resolution images of Saturn's rings obtained in January 2008 and April 2005 with COMICS mounted on Subaru…

A new method based on continuous wavelet transform with the complex Morlet wavelet to analyze Saturn main rings is presented. It allows to investigate in detail the resonance zones and reveal the coexistence of waves with stable periods and…

Images obtained by the Cassini spacecraft of the region just beyond Saturn's main rings reveal a previously unreported narrow and dusty ringlet that has dynamical connections with both Saturn's small satellite Prometheus and the F ring. The…