A Study of the Outermost Ring of Saturn

Abstract

The attention is called to the fact that the discovery by Feibelman (1967) of the rarefied outer ring of Saturn is confirmed by the observations of Kuiper (1972). It is proposed to designate this object as E-ring (exterior) in order to avoid confusion with the innermost, also rarefied, D-ring observed by Guérin (1970) and earlier by Barabashov and Semejkin (1933). The effects of the interaction of E-ring with inner Saturn’s satellites are briefly discussed. The conclusion is drawn that in cosmogonic time scale these effects are small. It is also shown that the optical thickness of E-ring is lower than 1/20000; the available photometric estimations of the geometric thickness of A- and B-rings need not be corrected for the light scattering and absorption by E-ring.