Interactions Between Neutral Gas Clouds and Plasma Near the icy satellites of Jupiter and Saturn.

Details Interactions Between Neutral Gas Clouds and Plasma Near the icy satellites of Jupiter and Saturn. Interactions Between Neutral Gas Clouds and Plasma Near the icy satellites of Jupiter and Saturn.

May 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007agusm.p43a..01b&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2007, abstract #P43A-01

Physics

5421 Interactions With Particles And Fields, 6033 Magnetospheres (2756), 6045 Physics And Chemistry Of Materials, 6218 Jovian Satellites, 6280 Saturnian Satellites

Scientific paper

Neutral gas clouds associated with icy satellites are intimately tied to the magnetospheric plasma in which they are formed and reside. Plasma interactions can create the clouds, remove material from them, and make it possible for us to observe them. At Europa, for example, energetic ions incident on the icy surface eject hydrogen and oxygen formed from the dissociation of water (Johnson et al. 1982). The hydrogen escapes, but the O2remains gravitationally bound, forming an atmosphere. This atmosphere then interacts with the thermal plasma in Jupiter's magneotpshere: the O2is dissociated by the electrons resulting in emissions from atomic oxygen which have been observed by HST and Cassini (Hall et al. 1995; Hansen et al. 2005). Charge exchange with magnetospheric ions and electron-impact ionization removes atoms and molecules from Europa's atmosphere and exosphere, and contributes fresh ions to the plasma (Saur et al. 1998; Shematovich et al 2005). At Enceladus, where 150-300 kg/s of H2O gas is supplied by the south pole plume (Hansen et al. 2006; Burger et al. 2007), charge exchange reactions between the plasma and H2O produce fresh pickup ions which slow and deflect the plasma (Tokar et al. 2006; Pontius and Hill 2006) and induce perturbations in Saturn's magnetic field (Dougherty et al. 2006; Khurana et al. 2006). The neutrals created in these charge exchange reactions either escape from Saturn entirely or are redistributed throughout the inner magnetosphere forming gas clouds which have been observed by HST and Cassini (Johnson et al. 2006). I will describe the interaction processes between the neutral atoms and molecules in icy satellite atmospheres and exospheres, and discuss differences between the processes imporant in Jupiter's magnetosphere, where the plasma content is greater than the neutral content, and Saturn's magnetosphere, which is dominated by neutrals. References: Burger et al., JGR, 2007, in press. Dougherty et al., Science, 311, 1406, 2006. Hall et al., Nature, 373, 677, 1995. Hansen et al. Icarus, 176, 305, 2005. Hansen, et al., Science, 311, 1422, 2006. Johnson et al., Nucl. Inst. Meth., 198, 829, 1982. Johnson, et al., ApJ, 644, L137, 2006. Khurana et al., JGR, 2007, submitted. Pontius and Hill, JGR, 111, A09214, 2006. Saur et al., JGR, 103, 19947, 1998. Shematovich et al., Icarus, 173, 480, 2005. Tokar et al. 2006, JGR, 311, 1409, 2006.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Interactions Between Neutral Gas Clouds and Plasma Near the icy satellites of Jupiter and Saturn. 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 Interactions Between Neutral Gas Clouds and Plasma Near the icy satellites of Jupiter and Saturn., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Interactions Between Neutral Gas Clouds and Plasma Near the icy satellites of Jupiter and Saturn. will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1035941