HR: 11:20h
AN: P52A-05    [Abstracts]
TI: Meteoroid Impacts onto Saturn's Rings
AU: * Chambers, L S
EM: lbruesch@es.ucsc.edu
AF: University of California - Santa Cruz, Department of Earth Sciences 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 United States
AU: Cuzzi, J N
AF: NASA Ames Research Center, Space Science Division Mail Stop 245-3, Moffett Field, CA 94035 United States
AU: Asphaug, E
AF: University of California - Santa Cruz, Department of Earth Sciences 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 United States
AB: Over the past decade, flash impacts have been observed on the moon and in the laboratory in both the IR and visible portions of the spectrum. These phenomena have been used to constrain impact parameters, such as impact velocity and composition. With the arrival of the Cassini spacecraft at Saturn this past July, we have embarked on a study of impact flashes in Saturn's rings. We begin by modeling high energy, hypervelocity impact events using CTH, a shock physics hydrodynamics code developed at Sandia National Laboratories. The simulated impacts involve two icy bodies (ranging from a centimeter to several meters in diameter) impacting each other at velocities over 30 km/s. The resulting impact-induced vapor plume is post-processed to consider its radiative evolution using NEQAIR, a radiative transfer code developed at NASA Ames. The results of this study will be used as an aid to investigate flash impact in Saturn's rings using Cassini's Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS). Here we present our latest modeling results. This work is supported by a Graduate Student Researchers Program Fellowship from NASA Headquarters and by the Cassini project.
DE: 6022 Impact phenomena
DE: 6060 Radiation and spectra
DE: 6265 Planetary rings
SC: Planetary Sciences [P]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting