HR: 09:30h
AN: SM11A-05    [Abstracts]
TI: Saturn: An Inside-Out Magnetosphere
AU: * Thomsen, M F
EM: mthomsen@lanl.gov
AF: Los Alamos National Laboratory, MS D466, Los Alamos, NM 87545 United States
AU: Tokar, R L
EM: rlt@lanl.gov
AF: Los Alamos National Laboratory, MS D466, Los Alamos, NM 87545 United States
AU: Barraclough, B
EM: bbarraclough@lanl.gov
AF: Los Alamos National Laboratory, MS D466, Los Alamos, NM 87545 United States
AU: Delapp, D
EM: ddelapp@lanl.gov
AF: Los Alamos National Laboratory, MS D466, Los Alamos, NM 87545 United States
AU: Funsten, H O
EM: hfunsten@lanl.gov
AF: Los Alamos National Laboratory, MS D466, Los Alamos, NM 87545 United States
AU: Reisenfeld, D
EM: dan.reisenfeld@umontana.edu
AF: University of Montana, Department of Physics and Astronomy 32 Campus Drive, Missoula, MT 59812 United States
AU: Steinberg, J T
EM: jsteinberg@lanl.gov
AF: Los Alamos National Laboratory, MS D466, Los Alamos, NM 87545 United States
AU: Sittler, E C
EM: Edward.C.Sittler@nasa.gov
AF: Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 692, Greenbelt, MD 20771 United States
AU: Hill, T W
EM: hill@rice.edu
AF: Rice University, Physics and Astronomy Department MS 108, Houston, TX 77251-1892 United States
AU: Young, D T
EM: dyoung@swri.edu
AF: Southwest Research Institute, 6220 Culebra Road P.O. Drawer 28510, San Antonio, TX 78228-051 United States
AU: Crary, F J
EM: fcrary@swri.edu
AF: Southwest Research Institute, 6220 Culebra Road P.O. Drawer 28510, San Antonio, TX 78228-051 United States
AU: Andre, N
EM: Nicolas.Andre@cesr.fr
AF: Centre d'Etude Spatiale des Rayonnements, 9 Avenue Colonel Roche, Toulouse, 31500 France
AU: Coates, A J
EM: ajc@mssl.ucl.ac.uk
AF: Mullard Space Science Laboratory, Holmbury St. Mary, Dorking, RH5 6NT United Kingdom
AB: At the Earth, the dominant sources of magnetospheric plasma are the solar wind and the upper atmosphere, both in a sense "external" to the magnetosphere itself. The path from source to sink is largely a solar-wind-driven convection into the magnetospheric tail, inward through and around the inner magnetosphere, and out through the dayside magnetopause. By contrast, at Saturn the magnetospheric plasma appears to be dominantly produced in situ, by local ionization of neutral material within the magnetospheric volume. Relevant evidence includes the plasma composition observed so far, the thermal structure, and the strong inward gradient in the density. There is also considerable evidence that this material is transported outward from the source region, at least in part through a very active process of centrifugally-driven flux-tube interchange. Ultimately, the plasma must be lost from the magnetosphere, through the magnetopause or down the tail as a planetary wind. We present observations from the Cassini CAPS instrument that demonstrate this "inside-out" character of Saturn's magnetospheric plasma sources, transport, and loss.
DE: 2732 Magnetosphere interactions with satellites and rings
DE: 2740 Magnetospheric configuration and dynamics
DE: 2756 Planetary magnetospheres (5443, 5737, 6030)
DE: 5737 Magnetospheres (2756)
SC: SPA-Magnetospheric Physics [SM]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly