Thursday, June 1, 2006, 16:00
WHGA Auditorium
C. Murray, QMU London
Abstract:
The Cassini spacecraft has been in orbit about Saturn since 2004,
returning data about the planet, its moons and rings. Prior to
Cassini most of what we knew about Saturn's rings came from the brief
flybys of the two Voyager spacecraft in 1980 and 1981. The images
and other data returned by Cassini are showing us a ring system that
is a paradigm of regularity in some places and apparent disorder in
others. The talk will illustrate what we have learned so far about
the dynamics of this complex ring system and outline the puzzles that
still remain.