Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Dandouras, Iannis
• Garnier, Philippe
• Mitchell, Donald G
• Roelof, Edmond C
• Brandt, Pontus C
• Krupp, Norbert
• Krimigis, Stamatios M

Titel

Titan's exosphere and its interaction with Saturn's magnetosphere

Ist Teil von

• Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A: Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences, 2009-02, Vol.367 (1889), p.743-752

Ort / Verlag

London: The Royal Society

Erscheinungsjahr

2009

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Titan's nitrogen-rich atmosphere is directly bombarded by energetic ions, due to its lack of a significant intrinsic magnetic field. Singly charged energetic ions from Saturn's magnetosphere undergo charge-exchange collisions with neutral atoms in Titan's upper atmosphere, or exosphere, being transformed into energetic neutral atoms (ENAs). The ion and neutral camera, one of the three sensors that comprise the magnetosphere imaging instrument (MIMI) on the Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn and Titan, images these ENAs like photons, and measures their fluxes and energies. These remote-sensing measurements, combined with the in situ measurements performed in the upper thermosphere and in the exosphere by the ion and neutral mass spectrometer instrument, provide a powerful diagnostic of Titan's exosphere and its interaction with the Kronian magnetosphere. These observations are analysed and some of the exospheric features they reveal are modelled.