Abstract

Saturn’s F ring is a dynamic and changeable environment that has long been suspected of possessing a population of small moonlets. Previously we identified small (50 km), linear features, observed in Cassini images, as produced by physical collisions (Attree et al. 2014). Orbit determination suggests they consist of ring material displaced by 1 m/s dissipative collisions with the nearby objects. Larger features are also visible in mosaics of Cassini images, some of which are associated with the moonlet S2004 S /6, and these are thought to involve higher velocity collisions (70 m/s). Here we will present the latest results in cataloguing `jets’ and `mini-jets’ to examine their distribution, morphology and evolution with time. Comparisons between these observations and N-body simulations will then be presented in an effort to place constraints on the underlying moonlet population as well as on the physics of the collisions themselves.