Model Comparisons with Cassini Era Saturn Electrostatic Discharges (SEDs)

Details Model Comparisons with Cassini Era Saturn Electrostatic Discharges (SEDs) Model Comparisons with Cassini Era Saturn Electrostatic Discharges (SEDs)

Oct 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011epsc.conf.1541m&link_type=abstract

EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2011, held 2-7 October 2011 in Nantes, France. http://meetings.copernicus.org/epsc-dps2011, p.1541

Computer Science

Scientific paper

Detections of radio bursts from atmospheric lightning by the Cassini RPWS (Radio and Plasma Wave Science) instrument provide information about Saturn's ionosphere. As the radio waves must pass through the ionosphere on their way to the spacecraft, the determination of the low-frequency cutoff in the radio spectrum yields an estimate of the peak electron density, NMAX, at that point and time. This diagnostic is currently the only method by which the complete diurnal variation of Saturn electron densities can be measured remotely. Voyager era SED measurements found NMAX to vary by two orders of magnitude throughout the Saturn day - from ~103 cm-3 at midnight to ~105 cm-3 at noon - and such a variation could not be reproduced by models. Diurnal variations in NMAX derived from Cassini measurements are typically smaller, with nighttime electron densities approaching 104 cm-3. Using the Saturn-Thermosphere-Ionosphere Model (STIM), a state of the art global circulation model of Saturn's upper atmosphere, we present the first direct model comparison with modern era SED measurements, and attempt to resolve the discrepancy between previous model calculations and SED-derived diurnal variations of NMAX. EPSC Abstracts Vol. 6, EPSC-DPS2011-1541-1, 2011 EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2011 c Author(s) 2011

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