Dust Delivery from Enceladus to the Moons of Saturn

Abstract:

The active geysers in the south polar region of Enceladus are sources of dust
particles that sustain the vast E-ring of Saturn, extending out beyond Titan
at 20 Saturn radii. The dynamics of the small micron and submicron particles
escaping from Enceladus is primarily set by Saturn's gravity, plasma drag,
radiation pressure and electromagnetic forces.

This presentation will summarize our recently developed simulations to follow a
large number of dust particles from Enceladus till their ultimate demise: being
ejected from Saturn's magnetosphere, or hitting one of its moons. We will describe
the expected size, speed and spatial distributions of the impacting particles and
identify their predicted anisotropies bombarding the leading/trailing hemispheres
of the moons, possibly offering an explanation for their observed brightness
features.