An Explanation for Neptune's Ring Arcs
Abstract
The Voyager mission revealed a complex system of rings and ring arcs around Neptune and uncovered six new satellites, four of which occupy orbits well inside the ring region. Analysis of Voyager data shows that a radial distortion with an amplitude of approximately 30 kilometers is traveling through the ring arcs, a perturbation attributable to the nearby satellite Galatea. Moreover, the arcs appear to be azimuthally confined by a resonant interaction with the same satellite, yielding a maximum spread in ring particle semimajor axes of 0.6 kilometer and a spread in forced eccentricities large enough to explain the arcs' 15-kilometer radial widths. Additional ring arcs discovered in the course of this study give further support to this model.
- Publication:
-
Science
- Pub Date:
- August 1991
- DOI:
- Bibcode:
- 1991Sci...253..995P
- Keywords:
-
- Neptune Satellites;
- Planetary Rings;
- Planetary Structure;
- Satellite Orbits;
- Voyager Project;
- Astronomical Models;
- Stellar Occultation;
- Ultraviolet Spectrometers;
- Lunar and Planetary Exploration
