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[64.08] Saturn's F ring seen by CASSINI ISS: several strands or a single spiral ?

S. Charnoz, E. Deau, A. Brahic, G. Bacques (Universite Paris 7 / CEA Saclay), C. Porcco (CICLOPS / SSI)

The Voyager and Cassini spacecraft both observed the F ring core surrounded by several ringlets called "strands". In Cassini images they ave a changing appearance with time and the geometry of the observation. In November 2004, April 2005 and May 2005, the Cassini ISS obtained three high resolution movies of the F ring spanning one orbital period. The strands are readily visible in each movie but with different shapes from one movie to the other. The Cassini images reveal that all the strands may be understood as a single spiral arm which constantly evolves with time. This new structure around Saturn is likely a consequence of close ringlet-satellite interactions (see Brahic et al, this conference).

The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: charnoz@cea.fr

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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 37 #3
© 2004. The American Astronomical Soceity.