相关论文: Exploring overstabilities in Saturn's A ring using…

Stellar occultations by Saturn's rings observed with the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) onboard the Cassini spacecraft reveal that dusty features such as the F ring and the ringlets in the Encke and the Laplace Gaps have…

In its decade of operation the Cassini mission has allowed us to look deep into Saturn's atmosphere and investigate the processes occurring below its enshrouding haze. We use Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) 4.6-5.2 micron…

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…

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 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…

Radio occultations of Saturn's main rings by spacecraft suggest a power law particle size-distribution down to sizes of the order of 1 cm (Marouf et al., 1983), (Zebker et al., 1985). The lack of optical depth variations between ultraviolet…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

We have analyzed the highest-quality images to be obtained by Cassini of Saturn's main rings after the Saturn Orbit Insertion (SOI) and before the Ring Grazing Orbits (RGO) and Grand Finale (GF). These images are comparable to those of SOI…

We present novel observations utilising the Cassini spacecraft to conduct an observing campaign for stellar astronomy from a vantage point in the outer solar system. By exploiting occultation events in which Mira passed behind the Saturnian…

D68 is a narrow ringlet located only 67,627 km (1.12 planetary radii) from Saturn's spin axis. Images of this ringlet obtained by the Cassini spacecraft reveal that this ringlet exhibits persistent longitudinal brightness variations and a…

We investigate the influence of collective self-gravity forces on the nonlinear, large-scale evolution of the viscous overstability in Saturn's rings. We numerically solve the axisymmetric hydrodynamic equations in the isothermal and…

The spectral position of the 3.6 micron continuum peak measured on Cassini-VIMS I/F spectra is used as a marker to infer the temperature of the regolith particles covering the surfaces of Saturn's icy satellites. This feature is…

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…

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…

Saturn's inner B-ring and its C-ring support wavetrains of contrasting amplitudes but with similar length scales, 100-1000 km. In addition, the inner B-ring is punctuated by two intriguing `flat' regions between radii 93,000 km and 98,000…

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…

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…