HR: 1340h
AN: P43B-1290    [Abstracts]
TI: The Large-scale Structure of Saturn's E ring
AU: * Juhasz, A
EM: juhasz@rmki.kfki.hu
AF: KFKI Research Institute for Particle and Nuclear Physics, POB: 49, Budapest, 1525, Hungary
AU: Horanyi, M
EM: horanyi@colorado.edu
AF: LASP and Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0392, United States
AU: Morfill, G
EM: gem@mpe.mpg.de
AF: Max-Planck-Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Giessenbachstraße, Garching, 85748, Germany
AB: Geysers on the recently discovered, geologically active south-polar region of the moon Enceladus are now recognized as the dominant source of material in Saturn's E ring. The ring was traditionally thought to span the region between 3 to 8 R_S, where R_S is the radius of Saturn. However, new in situ dust measurements indicate that the density of small grains might continuously extend far beyond these boundaries, and the E ring could reach even beyond the orbit of Titan (20.3 R_S). We report on the modeling results of the long-term evolution of dust particles comprising the E ring to show that grains from Enceladus could indeed reach the outskirts of Saturn's magnetosphere.
DE: 5465 Rings and dust
DE: 6275 Saturn
DE: 6280 Saturnian satellites
SC: Planetary Sciences [P]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting