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- Title
The determination of the structure of Saturn’s F ring by nearby moonlets.
- Authors
Murray, Carl D.; Beurle, Kevin; Cooper, Nicholas J.; Evans, Michael W.; Williams, Gareth A.; Charnoz, Sébastien
- Abstract
Saturn’s narrow F ring exhibits several unusual features that vary on timescales of hours to years. These include transient clumps, a central core surrounded by a multistranded structure and a regular series of longitudinal channels associated with Prometheus, one of the ring’s two ‘shepherding’ satellites. Several smaller moonlets and clumps have been detected in the ring’s immediate vicinity, and a population of embedded objects has been inferred. Here we report direct evidence of moonlets embedded in the ring’s bright core, and show that most of the F ring’s morphology results from the continual gravitational and collisional effects of small satellites, often combined with the perturbing effect of Prometheus. The F-ring region is perhaps the only location in the Solar System where large-scale collisional processes are occurring on an almost daily basis.
- Subjects
SATURN (Planet); MOON; CELESTIAL mechanics; COLLISIONAL excitation; MICROSPACECRAFT; SPACE vehicles; SOLAR system; SPACE exploration; GRAVITATIONAL collapse
- Publication
Nature, 2008, Vol 453, Issue 7196, p739
- ISSN
0028-0836
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1038/nature06999