Methane Group Ions in Saturn's Outer Magnetosphere

Details Methane Group Ions in Saturn's Outer Magnetosphere Methane Group Ions in Saturn's Outer Magnetosphere

Sep 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008dps....40.3114s&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #40, #31.14; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 40, p.448

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

2

Scientific paper

In Hartle et al. [2006a,b] they reported evidence of keV methane group ions within Saturn's outer magnetosphere during Cassini's TA Titan flyby. They presented evidence of CH4+ pickup ions within the mass loading region of the magnetospheric interaction with Titan. They also reported that keV water group ions W+ (i.e., O+) were present and dominated the magnetospheric heavy ion composition. These water group ions probably result from the emission of fast neutrals from the Enceladus torus via charge exchange reactions but still gravitationally bound to Saturn [see Johnson et al., 2005 and Sittler et al. 2006] and then become ionized in the outer magnetosphere where the pickup energies are keV. Since O+ and CH4+ have similar mass the primary discriminator is the O- fragment which appears at a different time-of-flight (TOF) than that for mass 16. One way to separate the methane from the O+ is to measure the relative abundance of the mass 16 peak with the O- peak. If there is a methane torus as a consequence of the hydrodynamic model of Strobel [2008], then one expects the presence of CH3+ ions and not CH4+ ions, since the methane dissociates to CH3 before they get ionized. Here we will be reporting on a further search for evidence of methane group ions within Saturn's outer magnetosphere.
References:
Hartle, R. E., et al., Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L08201, 2006a
Hartle, R. E., et al., Planet. Space Sci., 54, 1211, 2006b
Johnson. R.E., et. Astrophys. J. Letts, 644, L137-L139, 2005
Sittler, E. C., Jr., et al., JGR, 111, A09223, 2006
Strobel, D. F., Icarus, 193, 588, [2008]

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