FURTHER EVIDENCE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF ADDITIONAL SMALL SATELLITES OF SATURN

There is substantial evidence for the existence of small satellites in the saturnian system in addition to those with well-determined orbits derived from ground-based and Voyager observations. Charged particle data from Pioneer 11 and Voyager 2 provide specific evidence for the e xistence of material coorbital with Mimas. This work is an attempt to identify small satellites coorbital with Mimas which may be responsibl e for the charged particle results. The research uses a combination of the NAIF/SPICE Toolkit, IRAF, and locally developed software to analy ze images in the Voyager archive. We also develop a new approach to th e problem of blemish removal. Four possible new satellites are detecte d in Voyager 2 images after the identification and elimination of blem ishes and background stars. Details of the search criteria and probabl e orbits are discussed for each of the candidate objects. Three of the candidates may be coorbital with Mimas, If there is such a collection of small satellites in the orbit of Mimas it could explain the deplet ions seen in the charged particle data, One of the candidates, if it i s in the ring plane, would be on an orbit at the outer edge of the fai nt G ring, If so, it may provide a source for the ring material, Due t o the limited coverage of Voyager images in the search region it was n ot possible to find additional images of the candidates. As a conseque nce the features identified in this work must remain candidate objects until confirmed either by ground-based or spacecraft observations. (C ) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.