[Of intense interest will be a Cassini determination of the periodicity in the appearance of spokes. This will require monitoring spoke activity from a variety of geometries over several years.] Cassini has found that the SKR period has changed since Voyager, which though hard to believe, may mean that the rotation of Saturn's interior has changed,.. That would be a finding of enormous consequence, so, we'll be looking very closely to see if the frequency of spoke activity has changed too.
Carolyn Porco
And so the plot thickens
plot
Enceladus is surprisingly warm, internally fractured and active..
active
We have never seen anything like this before. There are spiral structures in the rings, there are gravity and density waves, but they are completely different things
things gravity
We've been on the lookout for them since February, 2004. Spokes are one of those Saturn-system phenomena that we are keenly interested in understanding.
understanding
Well, in some sense we should have expected, if the recent models are correct, to see them on the dark side where the photoelectron abundance is low. So, I was surprised to see them. But once they showed up, I realized we should have expected them there all along.
sense dark abundance side
Remember, Voyager was just a flyby, Cassini is in orbit. We have the opportunity for monitoring them and their behavior, their comings and goings, how they evolve, when they appear and disappear.
opportunity remember behavior evolve
We had convinced ourselves that conditions wouldn't be right for seeing spokes on the lit side of the rings until about 2007,.. But this finding seems to be telling us that conditions on the dark side of the rings are almost as good right now for seeing spokes.
good dark finding side
appearance determination variety hard found interest finding
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