HR: 0830h
AN: P21B-05    [Abstracts]
TI: Solar Heating of Titan's Ionosphere
AU: * Galand, M
EM: mgaland@bu.edu
AF: Center for Space Physics / Boston University, 725 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215 United States
AU: Yelle, R V
EM: yelle@lpl.arizona.edu
AF: Lunar & Planetary Laboratory / University of Arizona, 1629 E. University Blvd, Tucson, AZ 85721-0092 United States
AB: Titan's flybys by the Cassini orbiter provide a crucial and unique dataset on composition and temperature of Titan's ionosphere. Solar irradiance is a major energy source for Titan's upper atmosphere. The suprathermal electrons induced by photoionization are a significant heating source of Titan's ionosphere. In order to estimate the photoelectron heating on the ambient electron population, we have coupled a multi-stream electron transport model with an ionospheric model. The latter solves the continuity equation for the ionospheric and minor neutral species as well as the electron energy equation. We will assess the effect of photoelectrons on the ionospheric electron temperature within the context of the first Titan flyby by the Cassini orbiter.
DE: 2479 Solar radiation and cosmic ray effects
DE: 5729 Ionospheres (2459)
DE: 6280 Saturnian satellites
SC: Planetary Sciences [P]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly