Physics
Scientific paper
Sep 1993
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1993stin...9420048t&link_type=abstract
Unknown
Physics
Cosmic Dust, Plasma Waves, Saturn Rings, Space Plasmas, Spectrum Analysis, Voyager 1 Spacecraft, Waveforms, Cyclotron Radiation, Dawn Chorus, Enceladus, Hiss, Optical Thickness, Photometry, Plasma Density, Tethys
Scientific paper
The flyby of Voyager 1 at Saturn resulted in the detection of a large variety of plasma waves, e.g., chorus, hiss, and electron cyclotron harmonics. Just before the outbound equator crossing, at about 6.1 Rs, the Voyager 1 plasma wave instrument detected a strong, well-defined low-frequency enhancement. Initially it was suggested that plasma waves might be responsible for the spectral feature but more recently dust was suggested as at least a partial contributor to the enhancement. In this report we present evidence which supports the conclusion that dust contributes to the low-frequency enhancement. A new method has been used to derive the dust impact rate. The method relies mainly on the 16-channel spectrum analyzer data. The few wide band waveform observations available (which have been used to study dust impacts during the Voyager 2 ring plane crossing) were useful for calibrating the impact rate from the spectrum analyzer data. The mass and, hence, the size of the dust particles were also obtained by analyzing the response of the plasma wave spectrum analyzer. The results show that the region sampled by Voyager 1 is populated by dust particles that have rms masses of up to few times 10-11 g and sizes of up to a few microns. The dust particle number density is on the order of 10-3 m3. The optical depth of the region sampled by the spacecraft is 1.04 x 10-6. The particle population is centered about 2500 km south of the equatorial plane and has a north-south thickness of about 4000 km. Possible sources of these particles are the moons Enceladus and Tethys whose orbits lie within the E-ring radial extent. These results are in reasonable agreement with photometric studies and numerical simulations.
Barbosa Domingos
Gurnett Donald A.
Kurth Willaim S.
Tsintikidis Dimitri
No associations
LandOfFree
A study of Saturn's E-ring particles using the Voyager 1 plasma wave instrument does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with A study of Saturn's E-ring particles using the Voyager 1 plasma wave instrument, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and A study of Saturn's E-ring particles using the Voyager 1 plasma wave instrument will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1543329