Saturn: Search for a missing water source

Details Saturn: Search for a missing water source Saturn: Search for a missing water source

Dec 2002

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002georl..29x..25j&link_type=abstract

Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 29, Issue 24, pp. 25-1, CiteID 2172, DOI 10.1029/2002GL015855

Physics

38

Planetology: Solar System Objects: Saturn, Magnetospheric Physics: Planetary Magnetospheres (5443, 5737, 6030), Planetology: Solar System Objects: Saturnian Satellites, Planetology: Solar System Objects: Dust

Scientific paper

The origin of the large hydroxyl radical (OH) cloud near the inner moons of Saturn, indicative of a surprisingly large water-vapor source, has represented a puzzle since its discovery in 1992. A new set of Hubble Space Telescope measurements is used to constrain the OH spatial densities and to pinpoint the source region. Our model indicates that the vast majority of the water vapor (>80%) originates from Enceladus's orbital distance. This may indicate the presence of a dense population of small, as of yet unseen, bodies concentrated near Enceladus; collisions between these fragments are the suggested mechanism for producing the necessary amounts of water vapor. We show that collisions between plasma ions and neutral molecules substantially inflate the OH cloud, and increase the OH loss rate, requiring a water source three times larger than previous estimates.

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