TY  - JOUR
A1  - Hsu, Hsiang-Wen
A1  - Schmidt, Jürgen
A1  - Kempf, Sascha
A1  - Postberg, Frank
A1  - Moragas-Klostermeyer, Georg
A1  - Seiss, Martin
A1  - Hoffmann, Holger
A1  - Burton, Marcia
A1  - Ye, ShengYi
A1  - Kurth, William S.
A1  - Horanyi, Mihaly
A1  - Khawaja, Nozair
A1  - Spahn, Frank
A1  - Schirdewahn, Daniel
A1  - Moore, Luke
A1  - Cuzzi, Jeff
A1  - Jones, Geraint H.
A1  - Srama, Ralf
T1  - In situ collection of dust grains falling from Saturn’s rings into its atmosphere
JF  - Science
N2  - Saturn’s main rings are composed of >95% water ice, and the nature of the remaining few percent has remained unclear. The Cassini spacecraft’s traversals between Saturn and its innermost D ring allowed its cosmic dust analyzer (CDA) to collect material released from the main rings and to characterize the ring material infall into Saturn. We report the direct in situ detection of material from Saturn’s dense rings by the CDA impact mass spectrometer. Most detected grains are a few tens of nanometers in size and dynamically associated with the previously inferred “ring rain.” Silicate and water-ice grains were identified, in proportions that vary with latitude. Silicate grains constitute up to 30% of infalling grains, a higher percentage than the bulk silicate content of the rings.
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aat3185
SN  - 0036-8075
SN  - 1095-9203
VL  - 362
IS  - 6410
SP  - 49
EP  - +
PB  - American Assoc. for the Advancement of Science
CY  - Washington
ER  -