Thermal Plasma Flow Measured by Cassini Near Rhea

Physics

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6280 Saturnian Satellites

Scientific paper

Rhea is the second largest Saturnian satellite, with a radius of 765 km. It orbits Saturn at a radial distance of about 8.74 Saturn radii, within the magnetosphere's corotating thermal plasma. Rhea's orbital speed is less than the corotation speed, and so the thermal plasma forms a wake in the direction of Rhea's orbital motion. During November 26, 2005, Cassini passed within 500km of Rhea and across this wake, observing the thermal plasma with the Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS). The bulk flow of this plasma is deflected around the moon and this change in velocity is investigated here utilizing the Ion Mass Spectrometer, IMS, of CAPS. Preliminary studies suggested the ion flow velocity deflection is small and that ion densities for water group ions and H+ are approximately 4.0 and 0.4 cm-3, with temperatures approximately 150 and 30 eV respectively. Improved ion moments are presented by employing electron densities found from the upper hybrid emission as measured by the Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) instrument to constrain the total ion density within the calculations.

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