HR: 16:15h
AN: P44A-04    [Abstracts]
TI: X-rays from Saturn and its Rings
AU: * Bhardwaj, A
EM: Anil.Bhardwaj@msfc.nasa.gov
AF: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, NSSTC/XD12, 320 Sparkman Drive, Huntsville, AL 35805 United States
AU: Elsner, R F
EM: ron.elsner@msfc.nasa.gov
AF: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, NSSTC/XD12, 320 Sparkman Drive, Huntsville, AL 35805 United States
AU: Waite, J H
EM: hunterw@umich.edu
AF: University of Michigan, AOSS, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 United States
AU: Gladstone, G R
EM: randy.gladstone@swri.org
AF: Southwest Research Institute, P.O. Drawer 28510, San Antonio, TX 78228 United States
AU: Cravens, T E
EM: cravens@ku.edu
AF: University of Kansas, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Lawrence, KS 66045 United States
AU: Ford, P G
EM: pgf@space.mit.edu
AF: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center for Space Research,, Cambridge, MA 02139 United States
AB: In January 2004 Saturn was observed by Chandra ACIS-S in two exposures, 00:06 to 11:00 UT on 20 January and 14:32 UT on 26 January to 01:13 UT on 27 January. Each continuous observation lasted for about one full Saturn rotation. These observations detected an X-ray flare from the Saturn's disk and indicate that the entire Saturnian X-ray emission is highly variable -- a factor of ~4 variability in brightness in a week time. The Saturn X-ray flare has a time and magnitude matching feature with the solar X-ray flare, which suggests that the disk X-ray emission of Saturn is governed by processes happening on the Sun. These observations also unambiguously detected X-rays from Saturn's rings. The X-ray emissions from rings are present mainly in the 0.45-0.6 keV band centered on the atomic O Kα fluorescence line at 525 eV: indicating the production of X-rays due to oxygen atoms in the water icy rings. The characteristics of X-rays from Saturn's polar region appear to be statistically consistent with those from its disk X-rays, suggesting that X-ray emission from the polar cap region might be an extension of the Saturn disk X-ray emission.
DE: 0310 Airglow and aurora
DE: 6220 Jupiter
DE: 6265 Planetary rings
DE: 7519 Flares
DE: 7554 X rays, gamma rays, and neutrinos
SC: Planetary Sciences [P]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly