Magnetospheric Interaction at Saturn’s Icy Moons Enceladus, Dione, and Rhea: Cassini in-Situ Energetic Particle Measurements and Their Dynamics Compared with Simulation Results

Abstract:

During the last 9 years the Cassini spacecraft orbited Saturn and flew-by multiple times at the icy satellites Enceladus, Dione, and Rhea. The wealth of new unprecedented data from Cassini in combination with highly developed simulation runs revolutionized our view of the understanding of the interaction between the moons and surrounding magnetosphere. While the flyby in-situ energetic particle measurements can only give local snapshots of the interaction, simulations provide global parameters in the vicinity of the moons in the continuous flow of neutral and charged particles of the Saturnian magnetosphere. In this paper the in-situ energetic particles and fields measurements are reviewed. The results will be compared with simulations recently performed using the A.I.K.E.F hybrid code from the Technical University Braunschweig, Germany as well as with particle tracing code results.