Towards a theory for the uranian rings
@article{Goldreich1979TowardsAT, title={Towards a theory for the uranian rings}, author={Peter Goldreich and Scott Tremaine}, journal={Nature}, year={1979}, volume={277}, pages={97-99} }
Interparticle collisions, radiation drag and differential precession all tend to disrupt the rings of Uranus. The first two effects lead to radial spreading which would disrupt a free ring in ≲108 yr. We propose that the rings are confined in radius by gravitational torques from a series of small satellites that orbit within the ring system. Differential precession tends to destroy the apse alignment of the elliptical ε ring. We suggest that apse alignment is maintained by the self-gravity of…
150 Citations
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