Are Saturn electrostatic discharges really superbolts? A temporal dilemma

Details Are Saturn electrostatic discharges really superbolts? A temporal dilemma Are Saturn electrostatic discharges really superbolts? A temporal dilemma

Mar 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007georl..3406202f&link_type=abstract

Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 34, Issue 6, CiteID L06202

Physics

6

Atmospheric Processes: Lightning, Atmospheric Processes: Atmospheric Electricity, Planetary Sciences: Fluid Planets: Atmospheres (0343, 1060), Planetary Sciences: Fluid Planets: Meteorology (3346), Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects: Saturn

Scientific paper

Saturn electrostatic discharges (SED) are freely-propagating radio emissions detected in the high frequency (HF) radio band (1-40 MHz) associated with electrical discharge (i.e., lightning) from storms in Saturn's atmosphere. While SEDs responsible for the RF emission are considered to be very energetic superbolts (>1013 J), this determination is intimately related to the temporal nature of the discharge itself. As we demonstrate, if we assume the discharge has similar temporal properties as terrestrial cloud-to-ground discharges (with a stroke time scale ~70 μs), then indeed the discharge energy has to be ~ 1013 J in order account for the Cassini-observed radiated HF power of ~50 W/Hz. However, if the discharge duration is faster than the terrestrial case (i.e., ~1 μs), the energy of the discharge can be weaker than the terrestrial case since the central peak of the emission shifts closer to the HF band. Because of the near-flat SED spectra measured in the HF which favors a faster discharge, we conclude that the high level of radiated HF power from SEDs may have less to do with any extreme super-bolt strength of the discharge and has more to do with the intrinsic quick time-scale of relatively weaker discharges.

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