Hall DT, Feldman PD, Holberg JB, McGrath MA. Fluorescent hydroxyl emissions from Saturn's ring atmosphere.
Science 1996;
272:516-8. [PMID:
8614798 DOI:
10.1126/science.272.5261.516]
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Abstract
Just before earth passed through Saturn's ring plane on 10 August 1995, the Hubble Space Telescope Faint Object Spectrograph detected ultraviolet fluorescent emissions from a tenuous atmosphere of OH molecules enveloping the rings. Brightnesses decrease with increasing distance above the rings, implying a scale height of about 0.45 Saturn radii (Rs). A spatial scan 0.28Rs above the A and B rings indicates OH column densities of about 10(13) cm(-2) and number densities of up to 700 cm(-3). Saturn's rings must produce roughly 10(25) to 10(29) OH molecules per second to maintain the observed OH distribution.
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