A. Jouchoux

The auroral footprint of Enceladus on Saturn

Although there are substantial differences between the magnetospheres of Jupiter and Saturn, it has been suggested that cryovolcanic activity at Enceladus could lead to electrodynamic coupling between Enceladus and Saturn like that which links Jupiter with Io, Europa and Ganymede. Powerful field-aligned electron beams associated with the Io–Jupiter coupling, for example, create an auroral footprint in Jupiter’s ionosphere. Auroral ultraviolet emission associated with Enceladus–Saturn coupling is anticipated to be just a few tenths of a kilorayleigh (ref. 12), about an order of magnitude dimmer than Io’s footprint and below the observable threshold, consistent with its non-detection. Here we report the detection of magnetic-field-aligned ion and electron beams (offset several moon radii downstream from Enceladus) with sufficient power to stimulate detectable aurora, and the subsequent discovery of Enceladus-associated aurora in a few per cent of the scans of the moon’s footprint. The footprint varies in emission magnitude more than can plausibly be explained by changes in magnetospheric parameters—and as such is probably indicative of variable plume activity.

Radiation transport of heliospheric Lyman-alpha from combined Cassini and Voyager data sets

Aims. Heliospheric neutral hydrogen scatters solar Lyman-α radiation from the Sun with “27-day” intensity modulations observed near Earth due to the Sun’s rotation combined with Earth’s orbital motion. These modulations are increasingly damped in amplitude at larger distances from the Sun due to multiple scattering in the heliosphere, providing a diagnostic of the interplanetary neutral hydrogen density independent of instrument calibration. Methods. This paper presents Cassini data from 2003−2004 obtained downwind near Saturn at ∼10 AU that at times show undamped “27-day” waves in good agreement with the single-scattering models of Pryor et al. (1992, ApJ, 394, 363). Simultaneous Voyager 1 data from 2003−2004 obtained upwind at a distance of 88.8−92.6 AU from the Sun show waves damped by a factor of ∼0.21. The observed degree of damping is interpreted in terms of Monte Carlo multiple-scattering calculations (e.g., Keller et al. 1981, AA Izmodenov et al. 2001, J. Geophys. Res., 106, 10681; Baranov & Izmodenov 2006, Fluid Dyn., 41, 689). Results. We conclude that multiple scattering is definitely occurring in the outer heliosphere. Both models compare favorably to the data, using heliospheric neutral H densities at the termination shock of 0.085 cm −3 and 0.095 cm −3 . This work generally agrees with earlier discussions of Voyager data in Quemerais et al. (1996, ApJ, 463, 349) showing the importance of multiple scattering but is based on Voyager data obtained at larger distances from the Sun (with larger damping) simultaneously with Cassini data obtained closer to the Sun.