Energetic Ions in the Solar Wind at 9 AU, Approaching Saturn: Cassini-MIMI/INCA Results

Details Energetic Ions in the Solar Wind at 9 AU, Approaching Saturn: Cassini-MIMI/INCA Results Energetic Ions in the Solar Wind at 9 AU, Approaching Saturn: Cassini-MIMI/INCA Results

May 2004

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2004agusmsm33a..06m&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2004, abstract #SM33A-06

Physics

2102 Corotating Streams, 2114 Energetic Particles, Heliospheric (7514), 2154 Planetary Bow Shocks, 2704 Auroral Phenomena (2407), 2784 Solar Wind/Magnetosphere Interactions

Scientific paper

The Ion And Neutral Camera (INCA) sensor of the Cassini Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument (MIMI) may be configured either as an energetic neutral atom (ENA) camera, or as a sensitive energetic ion sensor. During the distant approach of Cassini to Saturn, the ENA emission from Saturn is too weak to take advantage of the ENA imaging capability of INCA, and so it was configured to measure 10-200 keV/nucleon energetic ions in the solar wind. INCA is easily the most sensitive instrument in this energy range to have measured heliospheric energetic ions in the region between Jupiter and Saturn. The measurements are dominated by ions accelerated at interplanetary shocks, as both coronal mass ejections and corotating interaction regions pass the Cassini spacecraft. The angular distributions of these ions have not been fully charaterized over most of this region, as Cassini remained typically 3-axis oriented and INCA can measure only over a 90o x 120o field of view. From the beginning of 2004 on, as Cassini approached within ~0.5 AU upstream and to the dawn side of Saturn, the spacecraft began pointing and rotating to optimize various science activities. In particular, Cassini was rotated about two different axes regularly over a 28 day period early in 2004 in coordination with Hubble Space Telescope observations of the Saturnian southern aurora, and INCA was able to obtain much more complete angular distributions during this interval. Several shocks passed Cassini during the 28 day period, and some of the observed ion anisotropies associated with those passages are consistent with a source in the vicinity of Saturn (possibly Saturn foreshock ions). Features of the energetic particle data will also be interpreted in the context of contemporaneous measurements of the ambient interplanetary magnetic field (allowing consistency with magnetic connection with Saturn's bowshock to be inferred, and shocks to be identified), solar wind plasma (allowing ion anisotropies to be transformed into the plasma rest frame), and HST auroral images (allowing associations between local solar wind structure and magnetospheric responses at Saturn).

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