Journal
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL LETTERS
Volume 718, Issue 2, Pages L92-L96Publisher
IOP PUBLISHING LTD
DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/718/2/L92
Keywords
planets and satellites: dynamical evolution and stability; planets and satellites: rings; planet-disk interactions
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Funding
- NASA [NNX08AQ72G, NNX10AG67G]
- NASA [NNX10AG67G, 133843, NNX08AQ72G, 95797] Funding Source: Federal RePORTER
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We report the discovery of several large propeller moons in the outer part of Saturn's A ring, objects large enough to be followed over the 5 year duration of the Cassini mission. These are the first objects ever discovered that can be tracked as individual moons, but do not orbit in empty space. We infer sizes up to 1-2 km for the unseen moonlets at the center of the propeller-shaped structures, though many structural and photometric properties of propeller structures remain unclear. Finally, we demonstrate that some propellers undergo sustained non-Keplerian orbit motion.
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