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Saturn's Spectacular Ring SystemSaturn's beautiful rings have fascinated astronomers since they were first observed by Galileo in 1610. The main rings consist of solid particles mostly in the 1 cm - 10 m range, composed primarily of water ice. The ring disk is exceptionally thin - the typical local thickness of the bright rings is tens of meters, whereas the diameter of the main rings is 250,000 km! The main rings exhibit substantial radial variations "ringlets", many of which are actively maintained via gravitational perturbations from Saturn's moons. Exterior to the main rings lie tenuous dust rings, which have little mass but occupy a very large volume of space. This seminar will emphasize the physics of ring-moon interactions, recent advances in our understanding of various aspects of the rings obtained from observations taken during 1995 when the rings appeared edge-on to the Earth and then to the Sun, and observations in subsequent years from HST.
Document ID
20010048660
Acquisition Source
Ames Research Center
Document Type
Preprint (Draft being sent to journal)
Authors
Lissauer, Jack J.
(NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA United States)
DeVincenzi, Donald
Date Acquired
August 20, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 2001
Subject Category
Lunar And Planetary Science And Exploration
Funding Number(s)
PROJECT: RTOP 344-30-50-01
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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