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. 2007 Aug 3;317(5838):653-6.
doi: 10.1126/science.1143964.

The source of Saturn's G ring

Matthew M Hedman  1 , Joseph A Burns, Matthew S Tiscareno, Carolyn C Porco, Geraint H Jones, Elias Roussos, Norbert Krupp, Chris Paranicas, Sascha Kempf
Affiliations

The source of Saturn's G ring

Matthew M Hedman et al. Science. .

Abstract

The origin of Saturn's narrow G ring has been unclear. We show that it contains a bright arc located 167,495.6 +/- 1.3 km from Saturn's center. This longitudinally localized material is trapped in a 7:6 corotation eccentricity resonance with the satellite Mimas. The cameras aboard the Cassini spacecraft mainly observe small (1 to 10 micrometers) dust grains in this region, but a sharp decrease in the flux of energetic electrons measured near this arc requires that it also contain larger (centimeter- to meter-sized) bodies whose total mass is equivalent to that of a approximately 100-meter-wide ice-rich moonlet. Collisions into these bodies may generate dust, which subsequently drifts outward to populate the rest of the G ring. Thus, the entire G ring could be derived from an arc of debris held in a resonance with Mimas.

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