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The relative proportions of water group ions in Saturn's inner magnetosphere: A preliminary study
Author(s) -
Wilson R. J.,
Bagenal F.,
Cassidy T.,
Fleshman B. L.,
Crary F.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: space physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-9402
pISSN - 2169-9380
DOI - 10.1002/2014ja020557
Subject(s) - saturn , magnetosphere , ion , physics , relative species abundance , abundance (ecology) , astrophysics , plasma , planet , nuclear physics , quantum mechanics , fishery , biology
We present a technique to gather ion composition information in the form of relative abundances of the water group ion species in Saturn's inner magnetosphere, utilizing the Cassini Plasma Spectrometer's Straight‐Through Time‐of‐Flight data from two orbits in 2011. We show that between 4.75 and 8 Saturn radii H 2 O + ions dominate the water group species, and from 8 to 10 Saturn radii it is OH + ions that dominate. Our results show that the relative proportion of H 3 O + falls fastest with increasing distance, while the proportion of H 2 O + decreases slowly. However, O + and OH + increase with distance, and O + is the least dominant ion species out to eight Saturn radii outside of which it is comparable to H 3 O + . The relative abundance of H 2 O + found here matches theoretical work based on Herschel telescopic data very well. These results are compared with other published work, and further improvements to the technique are discussed.