Studies of Planetary Ring Systems

We propose to extend our current cooperative agreement for another three years to continue this highly productive collaboration. The extension will provide ongoing full-time support for Stanford Research Associate Mark R. Showalter (henceforth MRS). His activities are divided into three separate but closely related activities. First, he will continue to pursue a variety of scientific problems related to the ring systems of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Second, he will continue to manage the activities of the Planetary Data System (PDS) Rings Node located at NASA Ames. Third, for at least one more year he will oversee a project to develop a software package for planetary image processing and analysis.