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Science 26 April 1996:
Vol. 272. no. 5261, pp. 509 - 515
DOI: 10.1126/science.272.5261.509
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Research Articles

Observations of Saturn's Ring-Plane Crossings in August and November 1995

Philip D. Nicholson, Mark R. Showalter, Luke Dones, Richard G. French, Stephen M. Larson, Jack J. Lissauer, Colleen A. McGhee, Patrick Seitzer, Bruno Sicardy, G. Edward Danielson

Observations of Saturn's ring system with the Hubble Space Telescope during the 10 August 1995 Earth crossing and the 17 to 21 November 1995 solar crossing indicate that the F ring dominates their apparent edge-on thickness of 1.2 to 1.5 kilometers. The F ring is slightly inclined with respect to the A ring, which may explain the approximately 50-minute difference in apparent crossing times for the east and west ring ansae in August. Prometheus lags its predicted position by about 19 degrees in longitude. The faint G ring is neutral or reddish in color and is confined to a radial range of 2.72 to 2.85 Saturn radii. The broad, distinctly blue E ring flares outward to a maximum thickness of about 15,000 kilometers at 7.5 Saturn radii and appears to have a spatially uniform particle size distribution.

P. D. Nicholson and C. A. McGhee are with the Astronomy Department, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-6801, USA. M. R. Showalter is at the Center for Radar Astronomy, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. L. Dones is with the San Jose State University Foundation, San Jose, CA 95172-0130, USA. R. G. French is with the Astronomy Department, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA 02181-8286, USA. S. M. Larson is with the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA. J. J. Lissauer is with the Astronomy Program, Department of Earth and Space Sciences, State University of New York, Stony Brook, NY 11794-2100, USA. P. Seitzer is with the Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1090, USA. B. Sicardy is with the Observatoire de Paris, IUF/Université Paris 6, 92195 Meudon Cédex, France. G. E. Danielson is at 170-25 California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.

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