Particles co-orbital to Janus and Epimetheus: a firefly planetary ring
Othon C. Winter, Alexandre P.S. Souza, Rafael Sfair, Silvia M., Giuliatti Winter, Daniela C. Mour\~ao, Dietmar W. Foryta

TL;DR
This paper reports the discovery and analysis of a unique, transient co-orbital ring with firefly-like visibility around Saturn's moons Janus and Epimetheus, explaining its formation, behavior, and short particle lifetime.
Contribution
It introduces a new co-orbital planetary ring, details its variable visibility, and models its rapid particle replenishment through micrometeorite impacts.
Findings
Ring width is 30-50% larger than previously thought.
Ring particles have a lifetime of less than two decades.
Replenishment model explains the ring's existence and firefly behavior.
Abstract
The Cassini spacecraft found a new and unique ring that shares the trajectory of Janus and Epimetheus, co-orbital satellites of Saturn. Performing image analysis, we found this to be a continuous ring. Its width is between 30% and 50% larger than previously announced. We also verified that the ring behaves like a firefly. It can only be seen from time to time, when Cassini, the ring and the Sun are arranged in a particular geometric configuration, in very high phase angles. Otherwise, it remains "in the dark", not visible to Cassini's cameras. Through numerical simulations, we found a very short lifetime for the ring particles, less than a couple of decades. Consequently, the ring needs to be constantly replenished. Using a model of particles production due to micrometeorites impacts on the surfaces of Janus and Epimetheus, we reproduce the ring, explaining its existence and the…
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
