Looking for Changes in the Saturnian System Between Voyager and Cassini

Abstract

This paper reviews a number of time-dependent phenomena that are relevant to our understanding of the dynamics of planetary rings and that will be investigated using Voyager and Cassini data. A long time baseline may help us decipher the physics of the spokes, understand better the morphology of the F ring and the rigid precession of non-circular ringlets, measure more precisely than has been done so far the satellites' torques and the viscosity of the A ring, and discover small satellites in the Saturnian ring system. Two exciting possibilities are those of determining the recession rates of the small satellites that border the rings, and of observing changes due to viscous diffusion in the irregular structures of the B ring.