HR: 10:30h
AN: SH32A-01    [Abstracts]
TI: Solar Polar Electron Density Lower Than Equator in 2002
AU: * Jensen, E A
EM: firerock@alum.mit.edu
AF: University of California, Los Angeles, Rm 3802 Geology Building Department of ESS, Los Angeles, CA 90095 United States
AU: Iess, L
EM: iess@hermes.ing.uniroma1.it
AF: Universit… di Roma `La Sapienza', Dipartimento Aerospaziale, Roma, 00184 Italy
AU: Asmar, S W
EM: sami.w.asmar@jpl.nasa.gov
AF: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 United States
AU: Russell, C T
EM: ctrussell@igpp.ucla.edu
AF: University of California, Los Angeles, Rm 3802 Geology Building Department of ESS, Los Angeles, CA 90095 United States
AB: In 2002, Cassini was in cruise to Saturn past Jupiter and was in solar conjunction on June 21. The radio signal from Cassini was occulted by the solar corona enabling measurement of its integrated electron density along the line of sight. The point of closest of approach of Cassini's radio signal passed beneath the south pole of the sun within 2 solar radii allowing measurement of the electron density as the latitude of the point of closest approach varied. Differenced Range Versus Integrated Doppler (DRVID) data is collected by transmitting a code to the spacecraft and measuring how long it takes for the code to return. We fit a longitudinally symmetric, latitudinally varying electron density model to the Cassini 2002 DRVID data and compare to the spherically symmetric electron density model. We find that the electron density is lower over the polar regions than over the equator in 2002.
DE: 6900 RADIO SCIENCE
DE: 6969 Remote sensing
DE: 6979 Space and satellite communication
DE: 7509 Corona
DE: 7599 General or miscellaneous
SC: SPA-Solar and Heliospheric Physics [SH]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly