Disentangling Saturn's F ring. I. Clump orbits and lifetimes

A comprehensive analysis of the Voyager images reveals the kinematics and lifetimes of clumps in the F Ring. At any given time, the ring has 2-3 major clumps, each several times brighter than the typical ring, plus numerous smaller features. A total of 34 individual clumps have been tracked over periods of 1-7 weeks. The clumps orbited at measurably different rates, implying a 100-km range of semimajor axes centered on 140,220 km. Most are centered around the nominal mean motion of the ring's core, but a few outliers may be associated with a different strand, or with no strand at all. Most clumps change very little over the similar to 30 days that they can be detected; however, no clump persisted for the nine-month interval between the two Voyager encounters. The brightest Voyager 2 clump is unusual in that it travels at a rapid mean motion and seems to be associated with the formation of several other clumps. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.