title: Observations of ejecta clouds produced by impacts onto Saturn's rings.
abstract: We report observations of dusty clouds in Saturn's rings, which we interpret as resulting from impacts onto the rings that occurred between 1 and 50 hours before the clouds were observed. The largest of these clouds was observed twice; its brightness and cant angle evolved in a manner consistent with this hypothesis. Several arguments suggest that these clouds cannot be due to the primary impact of one solid meteoroid onto the rings, but rather are due to the impact of a compact stream of Saturn-orbiting material derived from previous breakup of a meteoroid. The responsible interplanetary meteoroids were initially between 1 centimeter and several meters in size, and their influx rate is consistent with the sparse prior knowledge of smaller meteoroids in the outer solar system.
authors.affiliation: Center for Radiophysics and Space Research, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA. matthewt@astro.cornell.edu
authors.forename: Matthew S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Tiscareno
authors.forename: Colin J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Mitchell
authors.forename: Carl D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Murray
authors.forename: Daiana
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Di Nino
authors.forename: Matthew M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Hedman
authors.forename: Jürgen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Schmidt
authors.forename: Joseph A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Burns
authors.forename: Jeffrey N
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Cuzzi
authors.forename: Carolyn C
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Porco
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Beurle
authors.forename: Michael W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Evans