Peculiar Rainbows in Saturn’s E Ring: Uncovering Luminious Bands Near Enceladus
We report observations of stripe-like features in Enceladus’ plumes captured simultaneously by Cassini’s VIMS-IR and ISS NAC instruments during flyby E17, with similar patterns seen in VIMS-IR data from flyby E13 and E19.
These parallel stripes, inclined at approximately 16∘ to the ecliptic and 43∘ to Saturn’s ring plane, appear continuous across images when projected in the J2000 frame. A bright stripe, most visible at wavelengths around 5 μm, acts as the zeroth-order diffraction peak of a reflection grating with an estimated groove spacing of 0.12−2.60 mm, while adjacent stripes are attributed to higher-order diffraction peaks.
We suggest that this light-dispersing phenomenon originates from an inclined periodic structure within Saturn’s E ring. This structure, constrained between Saturn’s G-ring and Rhea’s orbit, likely consists of fresh ice particles supplied by Enceladus’ plumes.
Niels Rubbrecht, Stéphanie Cazaux, Benoît Seignovert, Matthew Kenworthy, Nicholas Kutsop, Stéphane Le Mouélic, Jérôme Loicq
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:2502.18028 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2502.18028v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2502.18028
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Submission history
From: Niels Rubbrecht
[v1] Tue, 25 Feb 2025 09:37:52 UTC (9,097 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.18028
Astrobiology,
