Extended Abstract
Saturn’s ring particles and airless moons are exposed to a large flux of interplanetary debris, principally comets and comet dust. Collisions with this debris are responsible for both physical and dynamical changes in objects orbiting about Saturn. Physical changes include cratering of large bodies and catastrophic disruption of small bodies. Dynamical changes, which are analyzed in this paper, include orbital alteration (principally of ring particles) and changes in spin state (which are only important for moons, as ring particle spins are continually altered by mutual collisions).
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© 1985 D. Reidel Publishing Company
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Lissauer, J.J. (1985). Dynamical Effects of Cometary Bombardment of Saturn’s Rings and Moons. In: Carusi, A., Valsecchi, G.B. (eds) Dynamics of Comets: Their Origin and Evolution. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 115. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-5400-7_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-5400-7_16
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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