The dust halo of Saturn's largest icy moon, Rhea.
نویسندگان
چکیده
Saturn's moon Rhea had been considered massive enough to retain a thin, externally generated atmosphere capable of locally affecting Saturn's magnetosphere. The Cassini spacecraft's in situ observations reveal that energetic electrons are depleted in the moon's vicinity. The absence of a substantial exosphere implies that Rhea's magnetospheric interaction region, rather than being exclusively induced by sputtered gas and its products, likely contains solid material that can absorb magnetospheric particles. Combined observations from several instruments suggest that this material is in the form of grains and boulders up to several decimetres in size and orbits Rhea as an equatorial debris disk. Within this disk may reside denser, discrete rings or arcs of material.
منابع مشابه
Is Enceladus a Comet? a Cometary Perspective
Introduction: The discovery of icy plumes emanating from Saturn's moon Enceladus by the Cassini spacecraft has raised questions about the cometary nature of this small satellite. The release of gas and dust from cometary nuclei is restricted to " jets " or plumes also and this activity has been observed in comets at distances much further than Saturn's orbit, including comet-like activity and a...
متن کاملEnergetic neutral atom emissions from Titan interaction with Saturn's magnetosphere.
The Cassini Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument (MIMI) observed the interaction of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, with Saturn's magnetosphere during two close flybys of Titan on 26 October and 13 December 2004. The MIMI Ion and Neutral Camera (INCA) continuously imaged the energetic neutral atoms (ENAs) generated by charge exchange reactions between the energetic, singly ionized trapped magnetosph...
متن کاملCassini CAPS Identification of Pickup Ion Compositions at Rhea
Saturn’s largest icy moon, Rhea, hosts a tenuous surface-sputtered exosphere composed primarily of molecular oxygen and carbon dioxide. In this Letter, we examine Cassini Plasma Spectrometer velocity space distributions near Rhea and confirm that Cassini detected nongyrotropic fluxes of outflowing CO2 during both the R1 and R1.5 encounters. Accounting for this nongyrotropy, we show that these p...
متن کاملEvidence for the exposure of water ice on Titan's surface.
The smoggy stratosphere of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, veils its surface from view, except at narrow wavelengths centered at 0.83, 0.94, 1.07, 1.28, 1.58, 2.0, 2.9, and 5.0 micrometers. We derived a spectrum of Titan's surface within these "windows" and detected features characteristic of water ice. Therefore, despite the hundreds of meters of organic liquids and solids hypothesized to exist ...
متن کاملLarge Impact Features on Saturn's Middle-sized Icy Satellites: Global Image Mosaics and Topography
Introduction: With the approach of Cassini to the Saturn system, attention naturally focuses on the planet, its rings and Titan, but the Saturn system is also populated by a number of smaller satellites. The seven middle-sized icy satellites, along with those of Uranus, (between 400 and 1500 km wide) are distinctly different geophysically and geologically from their much larger Galilean-class b...
متن کاملذخیره در منابع من
با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید
برای دانلود متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید
ثبت ناماگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید
ورودعنوان ژورنال:
- Science
دوره 319 5868 شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 2008