TY  - JOUR
A1  - Tiscareno, Matthew S.
A1  - Mitchell, Colin J.
A1  - Murray, Carl D.
A1  - Di Nino, Daiana
A1  - Hedman, Matthew M.
A1  - Schmidt, Jürgen
A1  - Burns, Joseph A.
A1  - Cuzzi, Jeffrey N.
A1  - Porco, Carolyn C.
A1  - Beurle, Kevin
A1  - Evans, Michael W.
T1  - Observations of Ejecta clouds produced by impacts onto Saturn's rings
JF  - Science
N2  - We report observations of dusty clouds in Saturn's rings, which we interpret as resulting from impacts onto the rings that occurred between 1 and 50 hours before the clouds were observed. The largest of these clouds was observed twice; its brightness and cant angle evolved in a manner consistent with this hypothesis. Several arguments suggest that these clouds cannot be due to the primary impact of one solid meteoroid onto the rings, but rather are due to the impact of a compact stream of Saturn-orbiting material derived from previous breakup of a meteoroid. The responsible interplanetary meteoroids were initially between 1 centimeter and several meters in size, and their influx rate is consistent with the sparse prior knowledge of smaller meteoroids in the outer solar system.
Y1  - 2013
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1233524
SN  - 0036-8075
VL  - 340
IS  - 6131
SP  - 460
EP  - 464
PB  - American Assoc. for the Advancement of Science
CY  - Washington
ER  -