The determination of the structure of Saturn's F ring by nearby moonlets.
Nature
; 453(7196): 739-44, 2008 Jun 05.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-18528389
ABSTRACT
Saturn's narrow F ring exhibits several unusual features that vary on timescales of hours to years. These include transient clumps, a central core surrounded by a multistranded structure and a regular series of longitudinal channels associated with Prometheus, one of the ring's two 'shepherding' satellites. Several smaller moonlets and clumps have been detected in the ring's immediate vicinity, and a population of embedded objects has been inferred. Here we report direct evidence of moonlets embedded in the ring's bright core, and show that most of the F ring's morphology results from the continual gravitational and collisional effects of small satellites, often combined with the perturbing effect of Prometheus. The F-ring region is perhaps the only location in the Solar System where large-scale collisional processes are occurring on an almost daily basis.
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MEDLINE
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2008
Tipo de documento:
Article