Evidence of Meteoroid Impacts on the Rings from Cassini Plasma Wave Measurements

Details Evidence of Meteoroid Impacts on the Rings from Cassini Plasma Wave Measurements Evidence of Meteoroid Impacts on the Rings from Cassini Plasma Wave Measurements

Dec 2004

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2004agufm.p51c..06g&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2004, abstract #P51C-06

Physics

7871 Waves And Instabilities, 6245 Meteors, 6265 Planetary Rings, 6275 Saturn

Scientific paper

During the passage of the Cassini spacecraft through the inner region of the Saturnian system on July 1, 2004, the Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) instrument detected many impulsive narrowband emissions that appear to be closely associated with the passage over the rings. In particular, the signals began and ended at the outer edge of the A ring, and were observed almost continuously (except for data gaps) over the A and B rings, with a well-defined gap at the Cassini division. Typically the signals occur in the frequency range from about 1 to 10 kHz, with bandwidths of a few hundred Hz and durations of about 1 to 3 seconds. The peak occurrence rate was about 1 event every few seconds. A good case can be made that this radiation is propagating near the whistler-mode resonance cone, which means that the source lies on the surface of a cone extending downward centered on the magnetic field with a half-angle ranging from about 10 to 60 degrees. The impulsive character of the emission suggests that the radiation is generated by some transient energetic process in the rings. The leading candidate appears to be meteoroid impacts on the rings. Rough estimates suggest that the flux of meteoroids with radii of about 1 cm would be adequate to explain the observed occurrence rates and emission intensities.

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