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| Titel |
Spatially resolved self-gravity wakes in Saturn's A and B rings from Cassini UVIS occultations |
| VerfasserIn |
Miodrag Sremcevic, Larry Esposito, Joshua Colwell |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2011
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 13 (2011) |
| Datensatznummer |
250057379
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| Zusammenfassung |
| After 6 years of Cassini mission the UVIS instrument recorded more
than hundred stellar occultations by Saturn's rings. Most of the
observed occultations have excellent spatial resolution on the order
of ten meters or even better. In a recent, specially crafted
high-resolution occultation of the mid A ring we for the first time
directly resolved individual self-gravity wakes. The occultation was
designed to track the orbital motion of ring particles, achieving the
true resolution in the co-rotating ring plane of less than a meter. In
this unique occultation the self-gravity wakes manifest themselves as
opaque or nearly opaque regions (tau>1.5) and constitute about 30% of
the total occultation signal. The observed wake lengths can be as
large as 200m. Another 30% of the ring is practically transparent
(tau<0.05), and somewhat shorter (L<100m). The opaque and transparent
regions are interspersed with material in an intermittent state
(0.05
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