Planetary Rings - 9781107028821

"Fully updated and expanded, this new edition presents a cutting-edge summary of planetary rings and a wealth of exciting space mission results which have greatly increased our understanding of rings in recent years, including Cassini's initial Saturn System mission and its extended Equinox and Solstice missions, and the New Horizons flyby of Jupiter. Larry Esposito draws on his 40 years' research experience, including his position as a principal investigator within the Cassini mission team, to present all aspects of planetary rings, emphasizing ring history and evolution. The book introduces basic physical processes and simple mathematical approaches in a clear, accessible manner, including N-body and stochastic models of ring dynamics. Further revised chapters present highlighted topics including Saturn's F ring, Uranus' rings and moons, Neptune's partial rings, dusty rings, and Jupiter's ring-moon system including information from Galileo and New Horizons. Cassini results are fully integrated throughout, including new images in color, and a helpful new Afterword links each of the ring images in the Cassini 'Hall of Fame' gallery to the relevant explanation in the text. The book is also supported by an online cache of selected images and videos from the NASA collection, making it easy to locate the most relevant and beautiful illustrative materials available"--