Publication Date:
2005-02-26
Description:
During Cassini's initial orbit, we observed a dynamic magnetosphere composed primarily of a complex mixture of water-derived atomic and molecular ions. We have identified four distinct regions characterized by differences in both bulk plasma properties and ion composition. Protons are the dominant species outside about 9 RS (where RS is the radial distance from the center of Saturn), whereas inside, the plasma consists primarily of a corotating comet-like mix of water-derived ions with approximately 3% N+. Over the A and B rings, we found an ionosphere in which O2+ and O+ are dominant, which suggests the possible existence of a layer of O2 gas similar to the atmospheres of Europa and Ganymede.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Young, D T -- Berthelier, J-J -- Blanc, M -- Burch, J L -- Bolton, S -- Coates, A J -- Crary, F J -- Goldstein, R -- Grande, M -- Hill, T W -- Johnson, R E -- Baragiola, R A -- Kelha, V -- McComas, D J -- Mursula, K -- Sittler, E C -- Svenes, K R -- Szego, K -- Tanskanen, P -- Thomsen, M F -- Bakshi, S -- Barraclough, B L -- Bebesi, Z -- Delapp, D -- Dunlop, M W -- Gosling, J T -- Furman, J D -- Gilbert, L K -- Glenn, D -- Holmlund, C -- Illiano, J-M -- Lewis, G R -- Linder, D R -- Maurice, S -- McAndrews, H J -- Narheim, B T -- Pallier, E -- Reisenfeld, D -- Rymer, A M -- Smith, H T -- Tokar, R L -- Vilppola, J -- Zinsmeyer, C -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2005 Feb 25;307(5713):1262-6.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX 78238, USA. dyoung@swri.edu〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15731443" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Atmosphere
;
Extraterrestrial Environment
;
Hydrogen
;
Ice
;
Ions
;
*Magnetics
;
*Oxygen
;
Protons
;
*Saturn
;
Spacecraft
;
Spectrum Analysis
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
