The determination of the structure of Saturn's F ring by nearby moonlets

Carl D. Murray (1) , Kevin Beurle (1) , Nicholas J. Cooper (1) , Michael W. Evans (1) , Gareth Williams (1) , Sébastien Charnoz (2)

1 AU - Astronomy Unit [London]
2 AIM (UMR7158 / UMR_E_9005 / UM_112) - Astrophysique Interprétation Modélisation

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.

Domaines: Astrophysique stellaire et solaire [astro-ph.SR]; Astrophysique stellaire et solaire [astro-ph.SR]

Carl D. Murray, Kevin Beurle, Nicholas J. Cooper, Michael W. Evans, Gareth Williams, et al.. The determination of the structure of Saturn's F ring by nearby moonlets. Nature, 2008, 453 (7196), pp.739-744. ⟨10.1038/nature06999⟩. ⟨cea-00930885⟩