In situ collection of dust grains falling from Saturns rings into its atmosphere

We report the direct in situ detection of material from Saturn’s dense rings by the CDA impact mass spectrometer. Most detected grains are a few tens of nanometers in size and dynamically associated with the previously inferred "ring rain." Silicate and water-ice grains were identified, in proportions that vary with latitude. Silicate grains constitute up to 30% of infalling grains, a higher percentage than the bulk silicate content of the rings.

Source: ScienceNOW - October 4, 2018 Category: Science Authors: Hsu, H.-W., Schmidt, J., Kempf, S., Postberg, F., Moragas-Klostermeyer, G., Seiss, M., Hoffmann, H., Burton, M., Ye, S., Kurth, W. S., Horanyi, M., Khawaja, N., Spahn, F., Schirdewahn, D., ODonoghue, J., Moore, L., Cuzzi, J., Jones, G. H., Srama, R. Tags: Geochemistry, Geophysics, Online Only, Planetary Science special/r-articles Source Type: news