Other
Scientific paper
Dec 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agufm.p51f..01k&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #P51F-01
Other
6030 Magnetic Fields And Magnetism, 6033 Magnetospheres (2756), 6280 Saturnian Satellites
Scientific paper
The more we learn about the icy moons of the outer planets, the more special cases we find ourselves considering: internal magnetic moments, induced magnetic moments, volcanoes, geysers, rivers of tar. Theoretical analysis is inevitably complex. Embedded in magnetospheric plasma, these moons interact with the ambient plasma in ways that can only approximately be treated in the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) approximation; such approaches as two fluid analyses that handle some parts of the analysis better than MHD must omit other aspects of the full treatment. The interaction region is not isolated. It is coupled to the upstream flow by compressional interactions whose propagation speed is greater than the flow speed of the incident plasma; it is coupled to the planet's ionosphere through field-aligned currents. The local plasma parameters may be very different from those of the upstream plasma because the local composition, number density, and characteristic energy are modified by ion pickup and charge exchange. Scales of interaction are not separable in environments containing particles whose gyro-radii differ little in magnitude from the radii of the moons. Only marginal added insight can be provided by simulations, which can focus on describing one or another part of the system correctly but cannot yet treat all scales and all processes appropriately within realistic constraints of computer resources. Yet despite these obstacles, considerable progress has been made in understanding the plasma environments of the icy moons and the interactions between plasma and moon, so this skeptical assessment can surely end on a positive note.
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