Nitrogen Sources in Saturn's Magnetosphere

Details Nitrogen Sources in Saturn's Magnetosphere Nitrogen Sources in Saturn's Magnetosphere

Dec 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agufm.p41a1254s&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #P41A-1254

Other

2753 Numerical Modeling, 5737 Magnetospheres (2756), 6275 Saturn, 6280 Saturnian Satellites, 6281 Titan

Scientific paper

Using data from the Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS) we detected nitrogen ions in Saturn's inner magnetosphere (3.5 Rs < L < 13.5 Rs) and showed that the likely source was Enceladus (Smith et al. 2005). This discovery was contrary to the predictions that the dominant nitrogen sources were either Titan's atmosphere (Smith et al. 2004) or from sputtering of nitrogen containing icy satellite surfaces (Sittler et al 2005). The subsequent discovery of the Enceladus geysers that have a nitrogen component (Waite et al. 2006) confirmed that Enceladus is a major source of nitrogen in Saturn's magnetosphere. Further analysis of the now extensive CAPS data set combined with 3-D Monte Carlo modeling were used to describe the neutral nitrogen and water tori and the ion source distributions. Here we confirmed our earlier analysis: that Enceladus is likely the principal nitrogen source in the inner magnetosphere, but we also show that Titan might account for some of the observed nitrogen ions at the largest distances considered. The modeling also shows that the CAPS observations are consistent with an N2 source from the Enceladus south polar jets, although small amounts of other parent nitrogen molecules may also be present. In order to better constrain the composition of the these jets we have re-examined the possibility that ions such as NH3+, NH2+, and NH+ are present in small amounts in the CAPS data. For comparison, we also include in our modeling a small amount of ammonia as a possible parent species.

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