Titan's exosphere and its interaction with Saturn's magnetosphere.
Titan's nitrogen-rich atmosphere is directly bombarded by energetic ions, due to its lack of a significant intrinsic magnetic field. Singly charged energetic ions from Saturn's magnetosphere undergo charge-exchange collisions with neutral atoms in Titan's upper atmosphere, or exosphere, being transformed into energetic neutral atoms (ENAs). The ion and neutral camera, one of the three sensors that comprise the magnetosphere imaging instrument (MIMI) on the Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn and Titan, images these ENAs like photons, and measures their fluxes and energies. These remote-sensing measurements, combined with the in situ measurements performed in the upper thermosphere and in the exosphere by the ion and neutral mass spectrometer instrument, provide a powerful diagnostic of Titan's exosphere and its interaction with the Kronian magnetosphere. These observations are analysed and some of the exospheric features they reveal are modelled.
Dandouras
Iannis
I
Centre d'Etude Spatiale des Rayonnements, Université de Toulouse, 31028 Toulouse, France CNRS, UMR 5187, 31028 Toulouse, France. iannis.dandouras@cesr.fr
Garnier
Philippe
P
Mitchell
Donald G
DG
Roelof
Edmond C
EC
Brandt
Pontus C
PC
Krupp
Norbert
N
Krimigis
Stamatios M
SM