An Updated Model Of Saturn's Internal Planetary Magnetic Field Based on All Available Data

Abstract:

By the end of the Cassini mission in fall of 2017, the spacecraft will have completed nearly 300 orbits at a range of geometries throughout the Saturn’s magnetosphere. The final phase of the mission will include 22 close orbits with periapse distances just beyond the cloud tops at 1 Saturn radii. This mission phase will be preceded by 20 orbits with periapse just inside the F-ring at 2.5 Rs. Data obtained on these orbits are likely to contribute substantially to our understanding of Saturn’s planetary magnetic field and could potentially lead to a determination of the rotation rate of the planet. Previous internal field models have been derived using data obtained inside the orbit of Enceladus, the major source of magnetospheric plasma and models have been derived based on data obtained through 2010 [Burton et al., 2010]. Since this time only a few periapses have come close to the planet providing data at radial distances useful for modeling the internal field. In this talk we present an updated internal planetary magnetic field model incorporating all available data including recent data obtained on a series of close (~3 Rs) periapses starting in fall of 2015.By the end of the Cassini mission in fall of 2017, the spacecraft will have completed nearly 300 orbits at a range of geometries throughout the planet’s magnetosphere. The final phase of the mission will include 22 close orbits with periapse distances just beyond the cloud tops at 1 Saturn radii. This mission phase will be preceded by 20 orbits with periapse just inside the F-ring at 2.5 Rs. Data obtained on these orbits are likely to contribute substantially to our understanding of Saturn’s planetary magnetic field and could potentially lead to a determination of the rotation rate of the planet. Previous internal magnetic field models have been derived based on data obtained through 2010 [Burton et al., 2010]. These models are typically derived using data obtained inside the orbit of Enceladus, the major source of magnetospheric plasma. In this talk we present an updated internal planetary magnetic field model incorporating all available data including recent data obtained on close periapses starting in fall of 2015.