Solar Radiation and Magnetospheric Electron Sources of the Ionosphere of Titan: Model Comparisons With Cassini Data

Details Solar Radiation and Magnetospheric Electron Sources of the Ionosphere of Titan: Model Comparisons With Cassini Data Solar Radiation and Magnetospheric Electron Sources of the Ionosphere of Titan: Model Comparisons With Cassini Data

Dec 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agufm.p13a0162c&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #P13A-0162

Physics

0335 Ion Chemistry Of The Atmosphere (2419, 2427), 2455 Particle Precipitation, 5421 Interactions With Particles And Fields, 5435 Ionospheres (2459), 6281 Titan

Scientific paper

The ionosphere of Titan provides an important link between external momentum and energy inputs and the neutral atmosphere. The Cassini Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS) onboard the Cassini Orbiter measured the neutral composition and structure of the upper atmosphere during several Titan encounters. Up until September 2006, the INMS had measured the ionospheric composition only on the outbound leg of the T5 pass, when the spacecraft was on the nightside, but dayside ion composition was measured by the INMS during two recent Titan passes (T17 and T18) in September 2006. Electron impact ionization associated with precipitation of magnetospheric electrons seems the likely explanation for the nightside ionosphere but photoionization by solar radiation is the dominant source on the dayside. We use a model of the Titan ionosphere, which includes ion chemistry and suprathermal electron transport to investigate how the ionosphere responds to magnetospheric and solar inputs. In particular, model results suggest that magnetospheric electrons with energies between about 25 eV and 1 keV are needed on the nightside. The model is also used to interpret the ion composition seen by the INMS and to test the ion chemistry scheme used.

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