2024/01/09 by R. G. French, Matthew M. Hedman, French, Richard G. +7 · 3 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Astro and Planetary Science #Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP) #FOS: Physical sciences #Geology and Paleoclimatology Research #Geomagnetism and Paleomagnetism Studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2401.04634
openalex publication_date 2024/01/09 · openalex created_date 2024/01/13 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
From 31 Earth-based and three Voyager 2 occultations spanning 1977--2006, we determine the orbital elements of the nine main Uranian rings with typical RMS residuals of 0.2 -- 0.4 km and 1-σ errors in a, ae, and asin i of order 0.1 km, registered on an absolute radius scale accurate to 0.2 km at the 2-σ level. The λ ring shows more substantial scatter. In addition to the free modes m=0 in the γ ring and m=2 in the δ ring, we find two additional outer Lindblad resonance (OLR) modes (m=-1 and -2) and a possible m=3 inner Lindblad resonance (ILR) mode in the γ ring. No normal modes are detected for rings 6, 5, 4, α, or β. Five normal modes are forced by small moonlets: the 3:2 inner ILR of Cressida with the η ring, the 6:5 ILR of Ophelia with the γ ring, the 23:22 ILR of Cordelia with the δ ring, the 14:13 ILR of Ophelia with the outer edge of the ε ring, and the counterpart 25:24 OLR of Cordelia with the ring's inner edge. We determine the width-radius relations for nearly all of the detected mode. We find no convincing evidence for librations of any of the rings. The Uranus pole direction at epoch TDB 1986 Jan 19 12:00 is αP=77.311327± 0.000141^∘ and δP=15.172795±0.000618^∘. We determine the zonal gravitational coefficients J2=(3509.291±0.412)× 10-6, J4=(-35.522±0.466)×10-6, and J6 fixed at 0.5× 10-6, with a correlation coefficient ρ(J2,J4)=0.9861, for a reference radius R=25559 km. From the amplitudes and resonance radii of normal modes forced by moonlets, we determine the masses of Cressida, Cordelia, and Ophelia. Their estimated densities decrease systematically with increasing orbital radius and generally follow the radial trend of the Roche critical density for a shape parameter γ=1.6.