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Saturn's Icy Moon Rhea: A Prediction for its Bulk Chemical Composition and Physical Structure at the Time of the Cassini Spacecraft First Flyby

Prentice, Andrew J. R.

I report a model for the formation of Saturn's family of mid-sized icy moons to coincide with the first flypast of Rhea by the Cassini spacecraft on 2005 November 26. It is proposed that the moons had condensed from a concentric family of orbiting gas rings that were shed some 4.6 × 10⁹ yr ago by the proto-Saturnian (hereafter p-Sat) cl…