Cassini RSS / archived profile

Rev 123 Egress · X-band · DSN 63

This public web derivative comes from the PDS3 product RSS_2009_360_X63_E_DLP_500M.TAB in collection CO-SR-RSS-4/5-OCC-V2.0. It provides exact converted records for browser inspection; it is not the original PDS ASCII table or a new reconstruction.

Source records

292,819

Ring radius

71,841.5–145,046 km

Sampling interval

0.25 km

Profile direction

egress

Fields and units

The derivative stores four Float64 fields in source-record order. Exact CSV exports also include the original zero-based sample index.

Ring radius · km

Distance from Saturn’s center to the ring-plane intercept point.

Normal Optical Depth · dimensionless

The normal optical depth obtained from its measured oblique value scaled by the sine of the absolute value of ring opening angle (OBSERVED RING ELEVATION). The measured diffraction-limited oblique optical depth is the negative natural logarithm of the NORMALIZED SIGNAL POWER above.

Normalized Signal Power · dimensionless

Power (amplitude square) of the measured ring-attenuated diffraction-limited radio signal, normalized by its value in the absence of the rings (normalized to unity in free-space). The value may be used to compute the measured diffraction-limited oblique optical depth as the negative natural logarithm of the NORMALIZED SIGNAL POWER.

Phase Shift · degrees

The difference between the phase of the coherent sinusoid passing directly through the rings (the direct signal) and its value had the rings been absent. The phase shift is computed from the measured or reconstructed complex ring transmittance; see Eq. (22) of MAROUFETAL1986. The phase reference of the original measurements is the Cassini UltraStable Oscillator, or USO

Provenance and verification

The catalog reports successful source conversion and web-data verification for this product. It contains 36 exact binary chunks; the browser checks SHA-256 hashes before displaying exact samples. This verifies the web derivative’s conversion and integrity, not a physical interpretation.

• NASA PDS collection record and source documentation ↗
• Cassini RSS archive overview ↗
• Product metadata and provenance (JSON)
• Exact binary chunk manifest and hashes (JSON)
• Display-only reduced overview (JSON)

What the data establish

These calibrated diffraction-limited profiles retain diffraction effects. The DLP 500 m product name and the 0.25 km radial sample spacing do not establish a new reconstruction resolution. Optical depth is not mass density; stored phase is not unwrapped and continuity is not inferred. Missing and negative measurements are preserved. No per-sample quality flag is included in this four-field derivative.

Use the explorer to choose inclusive radial boundaries, inspect exact samples, and export CSV for an eligible window. Research notes remain in your current browser. The six archived observations are separate from the synthetic and scalar-model experiments summarized on the research page.

All six observation products · Research methods and evidence