Tidal interactions between Saturn and its satellites play a crucial role in boththe orbital migration of the satellites and the heating of their interiors. Therefore constraining the tidal dissipation of Saturn (here the ratio k 2 /Q) opens the door to the past evolution of the whole system. If Saturn's tidal ratio can be determined at different frequencies, it may also be possible to constrain the giant planet's interior structure, which is still uncertain. Here, we try to determine Saturn's tidal ratio through its current effect on the orbits of the main moons, using astrometric data spanning more than a century. We find an intense tidal dissipation (k 2 /Q= (2.3 ± 0.7) × 10 -4 ), which is about ten times higher than the usual value estimated from theoretical arguments. As a consequence, eccentricity equilibrium for Enceladus can now account for the huge heat emitted from Enceladus' south pole. Moreover, the measured k 2 /Q is found to be poorly sensitive to the tidal frequency, on the short frequency interval considered. This suggests that Saturn's dissipation may not be controlled by turbulent friction in the fluid envelope as commonly believed. If correct, the large tidal expansion of the moon orbits due to this strong Saturnian dissipation would be inconsistent with the moon formations 4.5 Byr ago above the synchronous orbit in the Saturnian subnebulae. But it would be compatible with a new model of satellite formation in which the Saturnian satellites formed possibly over longer time scale at the outer edge of the main rings. In an attempt to take into account for possible significant torques exerted by the rings on Mimas, we fitted a constant rate da/dt on Mimas semi-major axis, also. We obtained an unexpected large acceleration related to a negative value of da/dt= -(15.7 ± 4.4) × 10 -15 au/day. Such acceleration is about an order of magnitude larger than the tidal deceleration rates observed for the other moons. If not coming from an astrometric artifact associated to the proximity of Saturn's halo, such orbital decay may have significant implications on the Saturn's rings.

Using astrometric observations spanning more than a century and including a large set of

, U. hopp 5,6 , C. Haumea-one of the four known trans-Neptunian dwarf planetsis a very elongated and rapidly rotating body 1-3 . In contrast to other dwarf planets [4][5][6] , its size, shape, albedo and density are not well constrained. The Centaur Chariklo was the first body other than a giant planet known to have a ring system 7 , and the Centaur Chiron was later found to possess something similar to Chariklo's rings 8,9 . Here we report observations from multiple Earth-based observatories of Haumea passing in front of a distant star (a multichord stellar occultation). Secondary events observed around the main body of Haumea are consistent with the presence of a ring with an opacity of 0.5, width of 70 kilometres and radius of about 2,287 kilometres. The ring is coplanar with both Haumea's equator and the orbit of its satellite Hi'iaka. The radius of the ring places it close to the 3:1 mean-motion resonance with Haumea's spin period-that is, Haumea rotates three times on its axis in the time that a ring particle completes one revolution. The occultation by the main body provides an instantaneous elliptical projected shape with axes of about 1,704 kilometres and 1,138 kilometres. Combined with rotational light curves, the occultation constrains the three-dimensional orientation of Haumea and its triaxial shape, which is inconsistent with a homogeneous body in hydrostatic equilibrium. Haumea's largest axis is at least 2,322 kilometres, larger than previously thought, implying an upper limit for its density of 1,885 kilograms per cubic metre and a geometric albedo of 0.51, both smaller than previous estimates 1, 10,11 . In addition, this estimate of the density of Haumea is closer to that of Pluto than are previous estimates, in line with expectations. No global nitrogen-or methane-dominated atmosphere was detected.Within our programme of physical characterization of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), we predicted an occultation of the star URAT1 533− 182543 by the dwarf planet (136108) Haumea and arranged observations as explained in Methods. Positive occultation detections were obtained on 2017 January 21, from twelve telescopes at ten different observatories. The instruments and the main features of each station are listed in Table 1.As detailed in Methods (see also Fig. 1), the light curves (the normalized flux from the star plus Haumea versus time) show deep 1 2