Cassini First Observations and Inferences about Small-Scale Plasma Transport in Saturn's Inner Magnetosphere

Details Cassini First Observations and Inferences about Small-Scale Plasma Transport in Saturn's Inner Magnetosphere Cassini First Observations and Inferences about Small-Scale Plasma Transport in Saturn's Inner Magnetosphere

Dec 2005

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005sf2a.conf..137a&link_type=abstract

SF2A-2005: Semaine de l'Astrophysique Francaise, meeting held in Strasbourg, France, June 27 - July 1, 2005, Edited by F. Casoli

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Scientific paper

The first Cassini observations reveal a very dynamic plasmasphere within the inner Saturnian magnetosphere. This corotation-dominated region is known to contain various neutral and plasma populations and Voyager spacecraft observations suggest that important radial processes redistribute the locally created plasma out to the remote magnetospheric regions. There is now considerable evidence with Cassini observations that this outward transport operates at least partly through the development of the centrifugal instability (a Rayleigh-Taylor type instability) and proceed through the interchange of magnetic flux tubes. We present here some of the latest Cassini multi-instrumental observations which are suggestive of the importance of this instability in redistributing the Saturnian magnetospheric plasma. First, we start from the identification of the main regions and plasma sources in Saturn's magnetosphere. Then, we discuss the signatures of plasma transport via interchanging flux tubes inside 10 Saturn radii and replace them in the context of our recent theoretical modelling of the centrifugal instability. Finally, we point out their similarities with previously identified signatures of interchanging flux tubes near the Io torus by the Galileo spacecraft, allowing the interesting possibility of carrying out a comparative study of the Jovian and Saturnian environments.

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