Evidence for, and discovery of, the Enceladus auroral footprint

Dr. Abigail Rhymer (JHU-APL)

Perhaps the most significant and surprising discovery of the Cassini mission to date is that of significant water vapour out-gassing from the South pole of Enceladus (Porco et al., Science 2006), making the tiny icy moon the dominant source of both plasma and neutral gas in Saturn?s magnetosphere. Recently we have discovered magnetic-field aligned ion and electron beams near Enceladus using the Cassini ion neutral camera and the Cassini electron spectrometer, respectively. From those data we estimated that these beams are strong enough to produce an auroral footprint in Saturn's atmosphere. Subsequently the Cassini UV imaging system has directly detected the expected Enceladus auroral footprint. Here we will review the data that led to the discovery of Enceladus' elusive auroral footprint.

 

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