Title

An Evolving View Of Saturn'S Dynamic Rings

Abstract

We review our understanding of Saturn's rings after nearly 6 years of observations by the Cassini spacecraft. Saturn's rings are composed mostly of water ice but also contain an undetermined reddish contaminant. The rings exhibit a range of structure across many spatial scales; some of this involves the interplay of the fluid nature and the self-gravity of innumerable orbiting centimeter- to meter-sized particles, and the effects of several peripheral and embedded moonlets, but much remains unexplained. A few aspects of ring structure change on time scales as short as days. It remains unclear whether the vigorous evolutionary processes to which the rings are subject imply a much younger age than that of the solar system. Processes on view at Saturn have parallels in circumstellar disks.

Publication Date

3-19-2010

Publication Title

Science

Volume

327

Issue

5972

Number of Pages

1470-1475

Document Type

Review

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1179118

Socpus ID

77949797334 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/77949797334

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