Fluorescent Hydroxyl Emissions from Saturn's Ring Atmosphere
Doyle T. Hall,
Paul D. Feldman,
J. B. Holberg,
Melissa A. McGrath
Just before Earth passed through Saturn's ring plane on
10 August 1995, the Hubble Space Telescope Faint Object Spectrograph
detected ultraviolet fluorescent emissions from a tenuous atmosphere of
OH molecules enveloping the rings. Brightnesses decrease with
increasing distance above the rings, implying a scale height of about
0.45 Saturn radii (RS). A spatial scan
0.28RS above the A and B rings indicates OH
column densities of about 1013 cm
2 and number
densities of up to 700 cm3. Saturn's rings must produce
roughly 1025 to 1029 OH molecules per second to
maintain the observed OH distribution.
D. T. Hall and P. D. Feldman, Center for Astrophysical Sciences,
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University,
Baltimore, MD 21218, USA. E-mail: dthall{at}pha.jhu.edu
J. B. Holberg, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona,
Tucson, AZ 85716, USA. E-mail:
holberg{at}argus.lpl.arizona.edu
M. A. McGrath, Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin
Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA. E-mail: mcgrath{at}stsci.edu
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