Physics
Scientific paper
May 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009agusm.p33b..02h&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2009, abstract #P33B-02
Physics
2756 Planetary Magnetospheres (5443, 5737, 6033), 6210 Comets (6023), 6220 Jupiter, 6275 Saturn
Scientific paper
Using magnetohydrodynamic models to study a wide range of planetary magnetospheres has yielded a wealth of information about how these complex systems work and about some of their similarities and differences. In this paper, I will address the similarities and differences in the magnetospheres of the two giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn, in contrast to the plasma environment of comets. At each of these objects the magnetosphere is dominated by a large source of neutrals (Io, Enceladus, the comet nucleus) that results in an extended neutral cloud that is in turn ionized resulting in a large plasma source. However, the nature of the sources is quite different and the resulting interaction of the magnetospheres with the solar wind has some very interesting differences. The size of these magnetospheres is determined by the size of the body that is an obstacle to the solar wind, however, at none of them is the body itself the obstacle. At the giant planets, the obstacle is the intrinsic magnetic field while at a comet it is the neutral cloud. Not only does the intrinsic magnetic field play a role in the size of the magnetosphere, but it also plays a key role in some of the very basic structures of the magnetosphere with the internal magnetic field of the giant planets dominating the inner magnetosphere while the lack of any significant magnetic field at comets leads to very interesting diamagnetic structure near the nucleus. We will compare and contrast these different aspects of planetary magnetospheres.
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