Supercorotating plasma in Saturn's dawn magnetosphere

Details Supercorotating plasma in Saturn's dawn magnetosphere Supercorotating plasma in Saturn's dawn magnetosphere

Dec 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010agufmsm23a1935m&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2010, abstract #SM23A-1935

Physics

[2731] Magnetospheric Physics / Magnetosphere: Outer, [2740] Magnetospheric Physics / Magnetospheric Configuration And Dynamics, [2756] Magnetospheric Physics / Planetary Magnetospheres, [6275] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Saturn

Scientific paper

Studying the dynamics of Saturn’s magnetosphere is important for understanding the physics of planetary magnetospheres throughout the solar system. Leading magnetic field configurations have been observed in the corotation-dominated magnetospheres of both Jupiter and Saturn, which suggests plasma supercorotation (Hairston and Hill, 1986; Hanlon et al., 2004; Talboys et al., 2009). It has been proposed that such supercorotation in Saturn’s outer, post-dawn magnetosphere plays an important role in creating the flow shears that are responsible for the planet’s main auroral emission (e.g. Cowley et al., 2008). We present the results of a survey of data taken by the Cassini spacecraft during passes through Saturn’s dawn magnetosphere in 2004 and 2005. Cassini plasma spectrometer observations reveal a region of heated, supercorotating plasma in the outer magnetosphere during one of the passes. The ion composition of the flow suggests that it could have been return flow from the Vasyliunas cycle. We discuss the implications of our results for the temporal variability of this fast flow, the existence of a region of Dungey cycle return flow, and planetary auroral emissions.

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