Tethys and Dione: Sources of Outward Flowing Plasma in Saturn's Magnetosphere

Details Tethys and Dione: Sources of Outward Flowing Plasma in Saturn's Magnetosphere Tethys and Dione: Sources of Outward Flowing Plasma in Saturn's Magnetosphere

Dec 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agufmsm22b..07b&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #SM22B-07

Physics

5780 Tori And Exospheres, 6275 Saturn, 6280 Saturnian Satellites, 7807 Charged Particle Motion And Acceleration, 7859 Transport Processes

Scientific paper

Saturn's magnetosphere has proved to be one of the most dynamic and interesting in the solar system. While plasma transport at Saturn is clearly dominated by rapid corotation, numerous strong inward plasma injections and subsequent dispersive drifts around the planet have been observed and reported. The character of the plasma injections in the inner region of the Saturn magnetosphere (between radial distances of roughly 5 to 8 Saturn radii) is observed to be consistent with several of the predictions of centrifugal interchange theory. One of the major outstanding questions, up to now, has been how plasma flows outward from the inner magnetosphere as is predicted from interchange theory in order to prevent unlimited accumulation of the injected plasma. Does the outflow occur in localized phenomena similar to the inward injection events and as predicted by several theoretical models, or is there a general outwelling of plasma with no discrete events? The research reported in this paper demonstrates that general outwelling is what in fact occurs. This conclusion is based on electron pitch-angle distributions of the so-called butterfly shape, which imply sources at localized radial distances well inside the point of observation. These distributions fill the spaces between the discrete injection events in the events reported here. The shapes of the butterfly distributions are consistent with sources near the orbits of the satellites Dione (for electrons with energies of several keV) and Tethys (for energies below 1 keV).

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Tethys and Dione: Sources of Outward Flowing Plasma in Saturn's Magnetosphere does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Tethys and Dione: Sources of Outward Flowing Plasma in Saturn's Magnetosphere, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Tethys and Dione: Sources of Outward Flowing Plasma in Saturn's Magnetosphere will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-971101