P13A-3796:
SATURN'S INTERNAL MAGNETIC FIELD: EXPECTATIONS FOR CASSINI'S UPCOMING PROXIMAL ORBITS
Monday, 15 December 2014
Marcia E Burton, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, United States and Michele Karen Dougherty, Imperial College London, Blackett Laboratory, London, United Kingdom
Abstract:
The Cassini Mission plans to execute a series of 22 high-inclination orbits close to Saturn's surface during its final 'Proximal Orbit' phase. This mission phase will begin in early 2016 and end in September of that year when the spacecraft makes its final plunge into Saturn's atmosphere. On these orbits, as the spacecraft flies through the gap between the planet and the inner edge of Saturn's closest ring, the D ring, continuous magnetic field measurements will be made. This unique orbit geometry will bring Cassini closer than ever to the planet and has the potential of substantially improving our knowledge of Saturn's internal planetary magnetic field. Cassini measurements over the course of the ten year mission have shown that the intrinsic field is very axisymmetric (Dougherty et al., 2005; Burton et al., 2009; Hao et al., 2011) yet planetary period oscillations are observed throughout the magnetosphere (Andrews et al., 2010, Southwood, 2011, Provan et al., 2013). In this talk we review our present understanding of Saturn's internal field and what we expect to learn based on measurements made during this unique mission phase.
