Composition of Titan's ionosphere: A comparison of Cassini CAPS and INMS results

Details Composition of Titan's ionosphere: A comparison of Cassini CAPS and INMS results Composition of Titan's ionosphere: A comparison of Cassini CAPS and INMS results

Dec 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agufm.p21b..05c&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #P21B-05

Physics

2419 Ion Chemistry And Composition (0335), 2459 Planetary Ionospheres (5435, 5729, 6026), 6026 Ionospheres (2459), 6281 Titan

Scientific paper

The Cassini Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS) has measured the abundances of over 47 species during outbound leg of the April 16, 2005 Titan encounter (1027 km altitude at closest approach) and made similar measurements below approximately 1025 km during the July 22, 2006 encounter (950 km closest approach.) At the same time, the Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS) also observed these same ions. Although the main CAPS mass spectrometer saturates in Titan's ionosphere, the low ion temperature allowed a rough determination of composition. Each species appears at an energy corresponding to its ram energy, and below approximately 1400 km, the widths of these peaks are narrow due to temperature. The effective mass resolution is low compared to INMS, M/delta-M ~ 8 compared to ~100 for INMS, but the CAPS data also constrain the ion temperature and, as a result of less restrictive pointing requirements, also obtained full vertical profiles below 1400 km on both the inbound and outbound legs of the Oct. 26 Oct, 2004, April 16, 2005 and July 22, 2006. These profiles consist of the abundance of groups of ions (e.g. of the several species with a mass of 28 +- 3 AMU.) We present combined analysis of CAPS and INMS data, where both are available, and use the additional CAPS data to extend the range of altitudes, latitudes and local times explored by the Cassini mission.

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