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Published April 10, 1981 | public
Journal Article Metadata-only

Encounter with Saturn: Voyager 1 Imaging Science Results

Smith, Bradford A.
Danielson, G. Edward
Ingersoll, Andrew ORCID icon

Abstract

As Voyager 1 flew through the Saturn system it returned photographs revealing many new and surprising characteristics of this complicated community of bodies. Saturn's atmosphere has numerous, low-contrast, discrete cloud features and a pattern of circulation significantly different from that of Jupiter. Titan is shrouded in a haze layer that varies in thickness and appearance. Among the icy satellites there is considerable variety in density, albedo, and surface morphology and substantial evidence for endogenic surface modification. Trends in density and crater characteristics are quite unlike those of the Galilean satellites. Small inner satellites, three of which were discovered in Voyager images, interact gravitationally with one another and with the ring particles in ways not observed elsewhere in the solar system. Saturn's broad A, B, and C rings contain hundreds of "ringlets," and in the densest portion of the B ring there are numerous nonaxisymmetric features. The narrow F ring has three components which, in at least one instance, are kinked and crisscrossed. Two rings are observed beyond the F ring, and material is seen between the C ring and the planet.

Additional Information

© 1981 American Association for the Advancement of Science. Received for publication 11 February 1981. Revision received 24 February 1981. Exploration of the Saturn system has been possible only because of the unselfish aid of many of our colleagues over the past decade. With regard to our atmospheric dynamics investigation, we thank R. Krauss at the University of Wisconsin and J. P. Müller, V. Moore, and R. F. T. Barney at University College London for making independent measurements of zonal winds on Saturn. We thank D. Wenkert, K. Rages, and W. Drew for their comments and help in our studies of the atmospheres of Saturn and Titan. Our investigations into Saturn's rings have been aided by J. Burns, K. Bilski, L. Esposito, F. Franklin, P. Goldreich, R. Greenberg, C. Porco, J. Lissauer, D. Jewitt, F. H. Shu, and G. Yagi. We thank D. Pieri, J. Plescia, and S. Squyres for their help with the section on satellite geology. We greatly appreciate the dedication and invaluable aid of the Image Processing Laboratory (IPL), the Mission Test Imaging System (MTIS), the Voyager science integration team, sequence team, and spacecraft team, as well as the Photography Laboratory and Graphics Department, all at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. We especially thank J. Anderson, M. Brownell, L. Cullen, G. Dimit, E. Korsmo, P. Kupferman, and F. Meng for help in sequence planning, exposure calculations, and image processing. The preparation of this manuscript benefited significantly from the assistance of L. Garcia, V. Nelson, G. Paterson, L. Pieri, O. Raper, and D. B. Weir. Finally, we thank our reviewers, including D. M. Hunten and M. J. S. Belton, for their helpful comments. G.E.H. is supported by the Science Research Council, Great Britain. This report presents the result of one phase of research carried out at Jet Propulsion Laboratory under NASA contract NAS 7-100.

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