Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Oct 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010dps....42.2508w&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #42, #25.08; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.997
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
Cassini observations have revealed that Enceladus, the Saturnian moon at 3.95 Saturn radii, is the mass-loading source for the neutral cloud in the inner magnetosphere. Enceladus‘ southern plume releases hundreds of kilograms of water-group neutrals per second. To understand the spatial scale of Enceladus‘ mass-loading region and the time scale of the process, we use ion cyclotron wave observations and a Monte Carlo particle tracing simulation to investigate this process. The ion cyclotron waves generated by the water group pickup ions are observed at all longitudinal separations from Enceladus at the moon's orbital distance, but are enhanced between forty degrees upstream and over a hundred degrees downstream. The waves extend radially from slightly insider Enceladus‘ orbit to outside of Dione's, but this longitundinal asymmetry is only observed near the former distance. The development of such a large mass-loading region can be studied by using a particle-tracing model, which assumes the neutral gas produced from Enceladus is first ionized, accelerated by the corotational electric field and then drifts away from the source region. Later they are neutralized by charge exchange and are transported across fieldlines as fast neutrals, which have a chance of escaping the Saturnian system without being re-ionized. This model was first developed to study the mass loading at Io. By adapting it to Enceladus, we can examine the extent of the Enceladus‘ mass-loading region and the time scale of the process. Just like Io in the Jovian magnetosphere, Enceladus plays an important role in the Saturninan magnetospheric dynamics. Studying the Enceladus mass-loading temporal and spatial scales helps us to understand the influence of the moon on the inner magnetosphere, and allows us to infer the behavior of the analogous processes in the Jovian magnetosphere where we have many fewer observations.
Cowee Misa M.
Dougherty Michele
Jia Yu
Leisner Jared
Russell Chris
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