Ion Mass-loading and Time Variability in the Saturn's Magnetosphere

Details Ion Mass-loading and Time Variability in the Saturn's Magnetosphere Ion Mass-loading and Time Variability in the Saturn's Magnetosphere

Dec 2005

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005agufm.p51e..03h&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2005, abstract #P51E-03

Other

2731 Magnetosphere: Outer, 2740 Magnetospheric Configuration And Dynamics, 5737 Magnetospheres (2756), 5780 Tori And Exospheres, 6275 Saturn

Scientific paper

Understanding the transport of plasma in rapidly rotating magnetospheres, such as Jupiter and Saturn, has been a major topic of study during the Galileo era and now continues with Cassini's arrival at Saturn. At Saturn, the instruments on the Cassini spacecraft are providing new and exciting data about the source and transport of plasma. At the center of the plasma transport problem is the internal source of plasma. At Saturn, sources can be placed in two groups: (1) Titan and (2) the inner icy satellites and rings. Studies conducted over the last several years have lead to the prediction of a very high ion mass-loading rate due to the rings and icy satellites that peaks near the orbit of Enceladus. As yet, processes such as sublimation and ion sputtering for the rings and Enceladus are not sufficient to explain the necessary source of the water group neutrals. The arrival of Cassini to Saturn has resulted in new measurements by several different instruments that shed light on the neutral production rate. We will present the current status of our understanding of the ion mass-loading process. Plasma added near Enceladus must eventually leave the Saturn system. Understanding the global transport of plasma of Saturn's magnetosphere is a major goal of the Cassini mission. New measurements have been made which indicate that in the middle and outer magnetosphere is very dynamic. The MIMI Ion Neutral Camera, for example, observes abrupt increases in the energetic neutral atom flux coming from the tail that they attribute to sub-storm like events. Global MHD simulations of the Saturn system have shown periodic plasmoid ejections that share some features of the MIMI results. Other instruments also observe periodic behavior. We will present data from several different teams that examine the time variability and plasma transport.

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