Creation of the Uranus rings and dust bands

@article{Esposito1989CreationOT,
  title={Creation of the Uranus rings and dust bands},
  author={Larry W. Esposito and Joshua E. Colwell},
  journal={Nature},
  year={1989},
  volume={339},
  pages={605-607}
}
VOYAGER observations of the extended hydrogen exosphere of Uranus and of the σ Ring and its shepherds set an upper limit to the age of the σ Ring of 6 × 108 years. Unless we are seeing Uranus at a special time in its history, this requires a continuing process to create the ring material. We propose that the moons, rings and dust now visible in the Uranus system are created by the diminution of larger objects by meteoroid impacts. A Monte Carlo calculation shows that the largest surviving… 
View on Nature
33 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
1
Background Citations
6

33 Citations

Citation Type

Citation Type

A numerical model of the Uranian dust rings
Origins of the rings of Uranus and Neptune: 2. Initial conditions and ring moon populations
The smallest moons of the Jovian planets are unlikely to survive intact the flux of cometary impactors in the outer solar system for billions of years. In paper 1 (Colwell and Esposito, 1992) we…
Fragmentation rates of small satellites in the outer solar system
The narrow rings of Uranus and Neptune exist in a system of observed and hypothesized small moons. Catastrophic fragmentation of these moons by comet impact has been proposed as the mode of origin of…
A recent cometary origin for Saturn's rings?
Dust on the Outskirts of the Jovian System: What Might Galileo and Cassini See?
Abstract The outer region of the jovian system between ∼50 and 300 jovian radii from the planet is found to be the host of a previously unknown dust population. We used the data from the dust…
The disruption of planetary satellites and the creation of planetary rings
A model of dust production in the Neptune ring system
Voyager 2 images of the Neptunian ring system show it to be relatively dusty with the fraction of micron-sized dust particles in the rings between about 0.2 and 0.7 (Smith et al 1989). We apply a…
Origins of the rings of Uranus and Neptune: 1. Statistics of satellite disruptions
Stochastic simulations of the collisional fragmentation of the small moons of Neptune and Uranus confirm the conclusions of Smith et al. [1986, 1989] that many of these moons cannot have survived…
Circumplanetary Dust Populations
We summarize the current state of observations of circumplanetary dust populations, including both dilute and dense rings and tori around the giant planets, ejecta clouds engulfing airless moons, and…
A belt of moonlets in Saturn’s A ring
TLDR
Embedded moonlets found in Saturn’s A ring are probably the remnants of a shattered ring-moon of Pan size or larger, locally contributing new material to the older ring, which supports the theory of catastrophic ring creation in a collisional cascade.
...
1
2
3
4
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 13 REFERENCES
Voyager 2 in the Uranian System: Imaging Science Results
TLDR
Voyager 2 images of the southern hemisphere of Uranus indicate that submicrometersize haze particles and particles of a methane condensation cloud produce faint patterns in the atmosphere, and Voyager images confirm the extremely low albedo of the ring particles.
Shepherding of the Uranian Rings. II. Dynamics
We explore the dynamical significance of the orbital resonances, identified in Paper I (Porco and Goldreich 1987), involving the satellites 1986U7 and 1986U8, and the є, δ, and y rings. We…
Shepherding of the Uranian rings. I. Kinematics
We identify several orbital resonances involving the newly discovered satellites, 1986U7 and 1986U8, and the Uranian rings. The most important resonances in eccentric rings are known as eccentric…
Ultraviolet Spectrometer Observations of Uranus
TLDR
The high temperature of the atmosphere, the small size of Uranus, and the number density of hydrogen atoms in the thermosphere imply an extensive thermal hydrogen corona that reduces the orbital lifetime of ring particles and biases the size distribution toward larger particles.
The formation and origin of the IRAS zodiacal dust bands as a consequence of single collisions between asteroids
Charged particle depletion surrounding Saturn's F ring - Evidence for a moonlet belt?
Planetesimals to planets: Numerical simulation of collisional evolution
Collisional balance of the meteoritic complex
Uranian ring photometry: Results from Voyager 2
We have investigated seven images of the Uranian rings taken with the clear filter of the Voyager 2 cameras during the January 1986 encounter. The images are at phase angles of 15.5°, 21.0°, 89.5°,…
Cratering history of the Uranian satellites: Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon
Crater size-frequency data for Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon are presented, and the implications of those data are discussed in terms of the geologic histories of these bodies and the populations of…
...
1
2
...