Peak electron densities in Saturn's ionosphere derived from the low-frequency cutoff of Saturn lightning

Details Peak electron densities in Saturn's ionosphere derived from the low-frequency cutoff of Saturn lightning Peak electron densities in Saturn's ionosphere derived from the low-frequency cutoff of Saturn lightning

Apr 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011jgra..11604315f&link_type=abstract

Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 116, Issue A4, CiteID A04315

Physics

1

Ionosphere: Planetary Ionospheres (5435, 5729, 6026), Planetary Sciences: Fluid Planets: Ionospheres (2459), Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects: Saturn, Radio Science: Ionospheric Propagation (0689, 2487, 3285, 4275, 4455)

Scientific paper

Radio bursts from Saturn lightning have been observed by the Cassini Radio and Plasma Wave Science instrument at frequencies of a few megahertz during several month-long storms since 2004. As the radio waves traverse Saturn's ionosphere on their way to the spacecraft, one can determine the peak electron density from the measurement of the low-frequency cutoff below which the radio bursts are not detected. In this way we obtained 231 profiles of peak electron densities that cover all Saturnian local times at a kronocentric latitude of 35°S, where the storms were spotted by the Cassini camera. Peak electron densities show a large variation at dawn and dusk and are around 5 × 104 cm-3, in fair agreement with radio occultation measurements at midlatitudes. At noon and midnight, the densities are typically somewhat above 105 cm-3 and around 104 cm-3, respectively. The diurnal variation is about 1 to 2 orders of magnitude for averaged profiles over one storm at 35°S. This is somewhat less compared to previous Voyager measurements which showed more than 2 orders of magnitude variation. The diurnal variation as well as the peak electron densities of Saturn's ionosphere tend to decrease with the decreasing solar EUV flux from 2004 until the end of 2009.

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