Saturn: An Inside-Out Magnetosphere

Details Saturn: An Inside-Out Magnetosphere Saturn: An Inside-Out Magnetosphere

May 2005

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005agusmsm11a..05t&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2005, abstract #SM11A-05

Physics

2732 Magnetosphere Interactions With Satellites And Rings, 2740 Magnetospheric Configuration And Dynamics, 2756 Planetary Magnetospheres (5443, 5737, 6030), 5737 Magnetospheres (2756)

Scientific paper

At the Earth, the dominant sources of magnetospheric plasma are the solar wind and the upper atmosphere, both in a sense "external" to the magnetosphere itself. The path from source to sink is largely a solar-wind-driven convection into the magnetospheric tail, inward through and around the inner magnetosphere, and out through the dayside magnetopause. By contrast, at Saturn the magnetospheric plasma appears to be dominantly produced in situ, by local ionization of neutral material within the magnetospheric volume. Relevant evidence includes the plasma composition observed so far, the thermal structure, and the strong inward gradient in the density. There is also considerable evidence that this material is transported outward from the source region, at least in part through a very active process of centrifugally-driven flux-tube interchange. Ultimately, the plasma must be lost from the magnetosphere, through the magnetopause or down the tail as a planetary wind. We present observations from the Cassini CAPS instrument that demonstrate this "inside-out" character of Saturn's magnetospheric plasma sources, transport, and loss.

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