The Plume Ionosphere of Enceladus as Seen by the Cassini Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer

Details The Plume Ionosphere of Enceladus as Seen by the Cassini Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer The Plume Ionosphere of Enceladus as Seen by the Cassini Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer

Dec 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agufm.p23b1388c&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract #P23B-1388

Other

2419 Ion Chemistry And Composition (0335), 2431 Ionosphere/Magnetosphere Interactions (2736), 6026 Ionospheres (2459), 6280 Saturnian Satellites

Scientific paper

The Cassini spacecraft passed within 168 km of the surface of Enceladus on 14 July 2005 and passed even closer (50 km) during the E3 encounter on 13 March 2008. During the first encounter (E2), the Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS) detected a plume atmosphere consisting mainly of water but also with some carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen. Higher quality data was obtained by the INMS during the E3 encounter and included measurements of the ion composition in the plume. A strong signal was present at a mass number of 19 Daltons in the ion mass spectrum of the plume and is interpreted as H3O+. The plume abundances of other ion species (including H2O+, OH+, O+) were at least 8 times lower than for H3O+. The INMS did not observe significant ion abundances near Enceladus just outside the plume. The INMS in its open source ion mode can only detect ions in a narrow volume of phase space (located for this observation at rest with respect to Enceladus), limiting the spectra obtained to "cold" ionospheric-type plasma. The published ion distributions measured by the Cassini plasma spectrometer (CAPS) during E2 just outside the plume appeared as an extended ring distribution covering a larger phase space volume. Ion-neutral cross sections will be used to interpret the INMS measurements of cold H3O+ ions and the almost complete absence of cold H2O+ ions. A plume ionosphere in which ion-neutral chemistry rapidly converts virtually all ions species into H3O+ ions will be discussed.

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