The Structure of Titan's Wake from Plasma Wave Observations.
Abstract
During the Voyager 1 flyby of Saturn's moon Titan, the plasma wave instrument detected several types of plasma wave emissions. On the inbound leg a broad region of intense low frequency noise was detected on the side of Titan facing away from Saturn. This noise has characteristics similar to the electric field turbulence observed in the magnetosheath at Earth and the ionosheath at Venus and is believed to be generated by newly created ions which are being accelerated in the vicinity of Titan by the corotational electric field. During the pass through the induced magnetic tail of Titan, a series of upper hybrid resonance emissions were observed. Large depressions in the magnetic field strength are observed coincident with each of the density peaks. These effects indicate that a dense plume of plasma is being carried downstream of Titan by the interaction with the rapidly rotating magnetosphere of Saturn. During the pass through the tail, a second type of low frequency electric field noise was observed with characteristics very similar to a type of noise called broadband electrostatic noise which is found in the Earth's magnetic tail. As in the case of the Earth, this noise is most intense near the outer boundary of the plasma sheet and is almost completely absent in the high density region near the neutral sheet. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 1981
- Accession Number
- ADA102784
Entities
People
- Donald A. Gurnett
- F. L. Scarf
- William S. Kurth
Organizations
- University of Iowa