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Cassini UVIS Stellar Occultation Observations of Saturn's Rings
Sremčević, M.; Colwell, J. E.; Esposito, L. W. +3 more
The Cassini spacecraft's Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) includes a high-speed photometer (HSP) that has observed more than 100 stellar occultations by Saturn's rings. Here, we document a standardized technique applied to the UVIS-HSP ring occultation datasets delivered to the Planetary Data System as higher level data products. These obse…
Erratum: "Determining Titan's Spin State from Cassini Radar Images"
Iess, Luciano; Cassini RADAR Team; Stiles, Bryan W. +12 more
We previously reported an initial determination of Titan's rotational state from fits to overlapping radar images. We have since discovered a coding error in software used to make these fits, which led to systematic offsets of 1-2 km in recovered positions. While our principal results remain qualitatively unchanged, with this error corrected, the …
Detection of Free Unstable Modes and Massive Bodies in Saturn's Outer B Ring
Porco, C. C.; Spitale, J. N.
Voyager images and Cassini occultation data have previously shown that the behavior of the outer edge of Saturn's massive B ring is determined only in part by a static response to the 2:1 inner Lindblad resonance with Mimas. In Cassini images of this region, we find, in addition to the expected wavenumber-2 forced distortion, evidence for unforced…
The Architecture of the Cassini Division
Sotin, C.; Brown, R. H.; Baines, K. H. +6 more
The Cassini Division in Saturn's rings contains a series of eight named gaps, three of which contain dense ringlets. Observations of stellar occultations by the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer onboard the Cassini spacecraft have yielded ~40 accurate and precise measurements of the radial position of the edges of all of these gaps and ring…
Migration of a Moonlet in a Ring of Solid Particles: Theory and Application to Saturn's Propellers
Charnoz, Sébastien; Crida, Aurélien; Salmon, Julien +2 more
Hundred-meter-sized objects have been identified by the Cassini spacecraft in Saturn's A ring through the so-called propeller features they create in the ring. These moonlets should migrate due to their gravitational interaction with the ring; in fact, some orbital variations have been detected. The standard theory of type I migration of planets i…
Occultation Observations of Saturn's B Ring and Cassini Division
French, Richard G.; Marouf, Essam A.; McGhee, Colleen A. +1 more
The outer edge of Saturn's B ring is strongly affected by the nearby 2:1 inner Lindblad resonance of Mimas and is distorted approximately into a centered elliptical shape, which at the time of the Voyager 1 and 2 encounters was oriented with its periapse toward Mimas. Subsequent observations have shown that the actual situation is considerably mor…
An Analytic Parameterization of Self-Gravity Wakes in Saturn's Rings, with Application to Occultations and Propellers
Porco, Carolyn C.; Hedman, Matthew M.; Burns, Joseph A. +4 more
We have developed a semianalytic method of parameterizing N-body simulations of self-gravity wakes in Saturn's rings, describing their photometric properties by means of only six numbers: three optical depths and three weighting factors. These numbers are obtained by fitting a sum of three Gaussians to the results of a density-estimation procedure…