Dynamics of Saturn's Dense Rings

Abstract

The Cassini mission to Saturn opened a new era in the research of planetary rings, bringing data in unprecedented detail, monitoring the structure and properties of Saturn's ring system. The question of ring dynamics is to identify and understand underlying physical processes and to connect them to the observations in terms of mathematical models and computer simulations. For Saturn's dense rings important physical processes are dissipative collisions between ring particles, their motion in Saturn's gravity field, their mutual self-gravity, and the gravitational interaction with Saturn's moons, exterior to or embedded in the rings.