Small Saturnian moons Spherical Harmonics Virtual Observatory Resource

Authors
  1. Rambaux N.
  2. Lainey V.
  3. Cooper N.
  4. Auzemery L.
  5. Zhang Q.F.
  6. Published by
    CDS
Abstract

The Cassini-Huygens space mission made a series of observations of Saturn's small satellites during its grand finale stage. These measurements were performed in order to study the shape, geology, and surface composition of the small satellites as well as to study the impact of the environment, in particular the rings, on these small bodies. The purpose of this study is to focus on the shape analysis of the small Saturnian satellites in order to describe their global figure and large-scale topography, as well as to deduce fundamental quantities, gravity field, and amplitude of the diurnal libration by assuming that the bodies are homogeneous. We used two approaches in this study. On the one hand, we directly exploited the Cassini images of the small satellites by performing limb measurements and deducing a confidence interval on the shape measurements. On the other hand, we used previously published shape models which combine limb measurements and control points. These shape models were then decomposed and described in spherical harmonics. We found that the shape of the small satellites can be described with a confidence interval between 50 and 150 metres. The low degree in spherical harmonics (degree 2) indicated that Telesto, Pandora, Pan, Janus, and Helene have a degree 2 shape close to the Omega sequence, which was defined recently, where the potential is constant along a meridian perpendicular to the longest axis. The degree 2 shape of Epimetheus, on the other hand, is close to the Roche sequence. In contrast, Prometheus, Calypso, and Atlas are in the Low-Brown region. The root mean square spectrum and spherical harmonic maps then allowed us to describe the topography of the satellites, and in particular to highlight equatorial ridges for some satellites including Daphnis. Finally, our estimates of the libration amplitude in the homogeneous case provide values in agreement with previously published librational measurements for Epimetheus while highlighting the proximity of the resonance for Epimetheus, Pandora, and Prometheus. The high resolution images of the internal satellites have allowed us to describe the geology and the geophysics of these bodies. Future comparison of these amplitudes with new librational measurements deduced, for example, by the astrometric method, will allow us to obtain information on the internal structure of these bodies. Similar studies could be carried out on the internal satellites of Jupiter using images from the Europa Clipper (NASA) or JUICE (ESA) missions.

Keywords
  1. solar-system
  2. solar-system-planets
Bibliographic source Bibcode
2022A&A...667A..78R
See also HTML
https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/A+A/667/A78
IVOA Identifier IVOID
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/667/A78
Document Object Identifer DOI
doi:10.26093/cds/vizier.36670078

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History

2022-11-08T15:36:56Z
Resource record created
2022-11-08T15:36:56Z
Created
2024-11-28T20:01:11Z
Updated

Contact

Name
CDS support team
Postal Address
CDS, Observatoire de Strasbourg, 11 rue de l'Universite, F-67000 Strasbourg, France
E-Mail
cds-question@unistra.fr