In August 2009 the Sun illuminated Saturn's rings from almost exactly edge-on, revealing a subtle corrugation that extends across the entire C ring. This corrugation's amplitude is 2 to 20 meters and its wavelength is 30 to 80 kilometers. Radial trends in the corrugation's wavelength indicate that this structure--like a similar corrugation previously identified in the D ring--results from differential nodal regression within a ring that became tilted relative to Saturn's equator plane in 1983. We suggest that this initial tilt arose because interplanetary debris struck the rings. The corrugation's radial extent implies that the impacting material was a dispersed cloud of debris instead of a single object, and the corrugation's amplitude indicates that the debris' total mass was ~10(11) to 10(13) kilograms.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 30. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 29 September 2023.
All research outputs
#1,455,525
of 28,839,374 outputs
Outputs from Science
#23,633
of 87,349 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#5,374
of 130,596 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Science
#88
of 409 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 28,839,374 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 94th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 87,349 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 66.4. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 72% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 130,596 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 95% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 409 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 78% of its contemporaries.
