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Session 34 - Solar System.
Display session, Tuesday, June 11
Tripp Commons,
8 - 13 µm spectroscopy of Saturnıs A amp; B rings (Lynch et al. 1996) reveal that when the saturnicentric solar latitude Bı was 19.1°,the A ringıs color temperature was around 100 K, roughly 10 K hotter than its brightness temperature. The most likely explanation is that the A ring contains small component (1-3% by cross section) of particles which are highly absorbing in the visible and poor emitters in the 10 µm region. By having temperatures of 105-115 K, such particles can explain the elevated color temperatures and still be consistent with Voyager and Pioneer results which limited the amount of such particles to less than 10%. The low cross section of the particles would also be consistent with the visible albedo and the ice features from the majority of the ring particles. In this paper we present the spectra predicted by the models and discuss the radiative properties of the putative dark particles.
