Charged nanograins in the Enceladus plume

Details Charged nanograins in the Enceladus plume Charged nanograins in the Enceladus plume

Dec 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011agufm.p14b..04h&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2011, abstract #P14B-04

Physics

[2756] Magnetospheric Physics / Planetary Magnetospheres, [5737] Planetary Sciences: Fluid Planets / Magnetospheres, [5759] Planetary Sciences: Fluid Planets / Rings And Dust, [6280] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Saturnian Satellites

Scientific paper

At the time of writing there have been three Cassini encounters with the Enceladus plume for which the Cassini Plasma Spectrometer had ram viewing (E3, E5, and E7). During each of these encounters, CAPS detected a cold but dense population of heavy charged particles having mass-to-charge ratios up to the maximum detectable by CAPS (~ 10^4 amu/e). These particles are interpreted as singly charged nanometer-sized water-ice grains (G. Jones et al., GRL, 2009). Although they are detected with both negative and positive net charges, the former greatly outnumber the latter, at least in the M/Q range accessible to CAPS. On the most distant encounter (E3, March 2008), we infer a net negative charge density ~ 2000/cm^3 for nanograins, far exceeding the ambient plasma number density, but less than the net positive plasma charge density inferred from the RPWS Langmuir probe data during the same plume encounter (M. Shafiq et al., PSS, 2011). Comparison of the CAPS datasets from the three available encounters is consistent with the idea that the nanograins leave the surface vents largely uncharged, but become increasingly negatively charged by plasma electron impact as they move farther from the satellite. Thus, for the even closer E14 encounter (1 Oct. 2011), also with CAPS ram viewing, this hypothesis predicts a weak or invisible charged nanograin signature. These nanograins clearly provide a potent source of magnetospheric plasma in the near vicinity of Enceladus.

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