Charged Particle Weathering of Saturn's Satellites

Details Charged Particle Weathering of Saturn's Satellites Charged Particle Weathering of Saturn's Satellites

May 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agusm.p24a..03p&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2007, abstract #P24A-03

Physics

5719 Interactions With Particles And Fields, 5737 Magnetospheres (2756), 5759 Rings And Dust, 6275 Saturn, 6280 Saturnian Satellites

Scientific paper

Saturn's icy satellites are weathered by energetic charged particles. Since the arrival of Cassini in 2004, we have discovered that the steady-state energetic ion population in the inner magnetosphere is severely depleted. Near and inward of the orbit of Rhea, ion fluxes in the energy range between a few keV and a few hundred keV are very low. This is likely due to charge-exchange losses to the neutral gas. Furthermore, inward of about 3.8 Saturn radii, electron background becomes high enough to obscure an already low foreground ion signal. Energetic electrons do not have the same rates of loss to the gas and their fluxes are observed to increase toward the planet. This suggests to us that the radiation dose into the icy satellites will be dominated by electrons. In this report, we will present ion and electron energy spectra near the icy satellites from the three sensors of the Cassini Magnetosphere Imaging Instrument (MIMI). For the region inward of Enceladus, we will present upper limits to the ion flux only. Finally, we will discuss the implications for the weathering of these surfaces by energetic charged particles. The energy deposited in the icy surfaces by energetic electrons can decompose ice producing H2 and O2. Estimates of the O2 source rate in the inner magnetosphere will be compared to the source of O2 scattered into the inner magnetosphere from O2 ring atmosphere.

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