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Register a new userSaturns inner satellites : orbits, masses and the chaotic motion of Atlas from new Cassini imaging observations
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We present numerically-derived orbits and mass estimates for the inner Saturnian satellites, Atlas, Prometheus, Pandora, Janus and Epimetheus from a fit to 2580 new Cassini ISS astrometric observations spanning February 2004 to August 2013. The observations are provided in a supplementary table. We estimate GM_ Atlas=0.384+/-0.001 x 10^(-3)km^3s^(-2), a value 13% smaller than the previously published estimate but with an order of magnitude reduction in the uncertainty. We also find GM_ Prometheus=10.677+/-0.006x10(-3)km^3s^(-2), GM_Pandora=9.133+/-0.009x10^(-3)km^3s^(-2), GM_Janus=126.51+/-0.03x10^(-3)km^3s^(-2) and GM_Epimetheus=35.110+/-0.009x10^(-3)km^3s^(-2), consistent with previously published values, but also with significant reductions in uncertainties. We show that Atlas is currently librating in both the 54:53 co-rotation-eccentricity resonance (CER) and the 54:53 inner Lindblad (ILR) resonance with Prometheus, making it the latest example of a coupled CER-ILR system, in common with the Saturnian satellites Anthe, Aegaeon and Methone, and possibly Neptunes ring arcs. We further demonstrate that Atlass orbit is chaotic, with a Lyapunov time of ~10 years, and show that its chaotic behaviour is a direct consequence of the coupled resonant interaction with Prometheus, rather than being an indirect effect of the known chaotic interaction between Prometheus and Pandora. We provide an updated analysis of the second-order resonant perturbations involving Prometheus, Pandora and Epimetheus based on the new observations, showing that these resonant arguments are librating only when Epimetheus is the innermost of the co-orbital pair, Janus and Epimetheus. We also find evidence that the known chaotic changes in the orbits of Prometheus and Pandora are not confined to times of apse anti-alignement.
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The magnetospheric cusps are important sites of the coupling of a magnetosphere with the solar wind. The combination of both ground- and space-based observations at Earth have enabled considerable progress to be made in understanding the terrestrial cusp and its role in the coupling of the magnetosphere to the solar wind via the polar magnetosphere. Voyager 2 fully explored Neptunes cusp in 1989 but highly inclined orbits of the Cassini spacecraft at Saturn present the most recent opportunity to repeatedly studying the polar magnetosphere of a rapidly rotating planet. In this paper we discuss observations made by Cassini during two passes through Saturns southern polar magnetosphere. Our main findings are that i) Cassini directly encounters the southern polar cusp with evidence for the entry of magnetosheath plasma into the cusp via magnetopause reconnection, ii) magnetopause reconnection and entry of plasma into the cusp can occur over a range of solar wind conditions, and iii) double cusp morphologies are consistent with the position of the cusp oscillating in phase with Saturns global magnetospheric periodicities.
Using astrometric observations spanning more than a century and including a large set of Cassini data, we determine Saturns tidal parameters through their current effects on the orbits of the eight main and four coorbital moons. We have used the latter to make the first determination of Saturns Love number, $k_2=0.390 pm 0.024$, a value larger than the commonly used theoretical value of 0.341 (Gavrilov & Zharkov, 1977), but compatible with more recent models (Helled & Guillot, 2013) for which $k_2$ ranges from 0.355 to 0.382. Depending on the assumed spin for Saturns interior, the new constraint can lead to a reduction of up to 80% in the number of potential models, offering great opportunities to probe the planets interior. In addition, significant tidal dissipation within Saturn is confirmed (Lainey et al., 2012) corresponding to a high present-day tidal ratio $k_2/Q=(1.59 pm 0.74) times 10^{-4}$ and implying fast orbital expansions of the moons. This high dissipation, with no obvious variations for tidal frequencies corresponding to those of Enceladus and Dione, may be explained by viscous friction in a solid core, implying a core viscosity typically ranging between $10^{14}$ and $10^{16}$ Pa.s (Remus et al., 2012). However, a dissipation increase by one order of magnitude at Rheas frequency could suggest the existence of an additional, frequency-dependent, dissipation process, possibly from turbulent friction acting on tidal waves in the fluid envelope of Saturn (Ogilvie & Li, 2004). Alternatively, a few of Saturns moons might themselves experience large tidal dissipation.
The spectral position of the 3.6 micron continuum peak measured on Cassini-VIMS I/F spectra is used as a marker to infer the temperature of the regolith particles covering the surfaces of Saturns icy satellites. This feature is characterizing the crystalline water ice spectrum which is the dominant compositional endmember of the satellites surfaces. Laboratory measurements indicate that the position of the 3.6 micron peak of pure water ice is temperature-dependent, shifting towards shorter wavelengths when the sample is cooled, from about 3.65 micron at T=123 K to about 3.55 micron at T=88 K. A similar method was already applied to VIMS Saturns rings mosaics to retrieve ring particles temperature (Filacchione et al., 2014). We report here about the daytime temperature variations observed on the icy satellites as derived from three different VIMS observation types. Temperature maps are built by mining the complete VIMS dataset collected in years 2004-2009 (pre-equinox) and in 2009-2012 (post equinox) by selecting pixels with max 150 km/pixel resolution. VIMS-derived temperature maps allow to identify thermal anomalies across the equatorial lens of Mimas and Tethys.
In the last few years Cassini-VIMS, the Visible and Infared Mapping Spectrometer, returned to us a comprehensive view of the Saturns icy satellites and rings. After having analyzed the satellites spectral properties (Filacchione et al. (2007a)) and their distribution across the satellites hemispheres (Filacchione et al. (2010)), we proceed in this paper to investigate the radial variability of icy satellites (principal and minor) and main rings average spectral properties. This analysis is done by using 2,264 disk-integrated observations of the satellites and a 12x700 pixels-wide rings radial mosaic acquired with a spatial resolution of about 125 km/pixel. The comparative analysis of these data allows us to retrieve the amount of both water ice and red contaminant materials distributed across Saturns system and the typical surface regolith grain sizes. These measurements highlight very striking differences in the population here analyzed, which vary from the almost uncontaminated and water ice-rich surfaces of Enceladus and Calypso to the metal/organic-rich and red surfaces of Iapetus leading hemisphere and Phoebe. Rings spectra appear more red than the icy satellites in the visible range but show more intense 1.5-2.0 micron band depths. The correlations among spectral slopes, band depths, visual albedo and phase permit us to cluster the saturnian population in different spectral classes which are detected not only among the principal satellites and rings but among co-orbital minor moons as well. Finally, we have applied Hapkes theory to retrieve the best spectral fits to Saturns inner regular satellites using the same methodology applied previously for Rhea data discussed in Ciarniello et al. (2011).
We revisit the dynamics of Atlas. Using Cassini ISS astrometric observations spanning February 2004 to August 2013, Cooper et al. (2015) found evidence that Atlas is currently perturbed by both a 54:53 corotation eccentricity resonance (CER) and a 54:53 Lindblad eccentricity resonance (LER) with Prometheus. They demonstrated that the orbit of Atlas is chaotic, with a Lyapunov time of order 10 years, as a direct consequence of the coupled resonant interaction (CER/LER) with Prometheus. Here we investigate the interactions between the two resonances using the CoraLin analytical model (El Moutamid et al. 2014), showing that the chaotic zone fills almost all the corotation sites occupied by the satellites orbit. Four 70:67 apse-type mean motion resonances with Pandora are also overlapping, but these resonances have a much weaker effect. Frequency analysis allows us to highlight the coupling between the 54:53 resonances, and confirms that a simplified system including the perturbations due to Prometheus and Saturns oblateness only captures the essential features of the dynamics.
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