Far-infrared brightness temperature of Saturn's disk and rings

Abstract

We present far-infrared observations of Saturn in the wavelength band 76-116 μm, using a balloon-borne 75-cm telescope launched on 10 December 1980 from Hyderabad, India, when B', the Saturnicentric latitude of the Sun, was 4° .3. Normalizing with respect to Jupiter, we find the average brightness temperature of the disk-ring system to be 90±3° K. Correcting for the contribution from rings using experimental information on the brightness temperature of rings at 20 μm, we find T_D, the brightness temperature of the disk, to be 96.9±3.5° K. The systematic errors and the correction for the ring contribution are small for our observations. We, therefore, make use of our estimate of T_D and earlier observations of Saturn when contribution from the rings was large and find that for wavelengths greater than 50 μm, there is a small reduction in the ring brightness temperature as compared to that at 20 μm.