How much oxygen is too much? Constraining Saturn's ring atmosphere

Abstract

The discovery of a molecular oxygen atmosphere around Saturn's rings has important implications for the electrodynamics of the ring system. Its existence was inferred from the Cassini in situ detection of molecular oxygen ions above the rings during Saturn Orbit Insertion in 2004. Molecular oxygen is difficult to observe remotely, and theoretical estimates have yielded only a lower limit ( N n ≳ 10 13 cm −2 ) to the O 2 column density. Comparison with observations has previously concerned matching ion densities at spacecraft altitudes far larger than the scale height of the neutral atmosphere. This is further complicated by charged particle propagation effects in Saturn's offset magnetic field. In this study we adopt a complementary approach, by focusing on bulk atmospheric properties and using additional aspects of the Cassini observations to place an upper limit on the column density. We develop a simple analytic model of the molecular atmosphere and its photo-ionization and dissociation products, with N n a free parameter. Heating of the neutrals by viscous stirring, cooling by collisions with the rings, and torquing by collisions with pickup ions are all included in the model. We limit the neutral scale height to h ≲ 3000 km using the INMS neutral density nondetection over the A ring. A first upper limit to the neutral column is derived by using our model to reassess O 2 production and loss rates. Two further limits are then obtained from Cassini observations: corotation of the observed ions with the planet implies that the height-integrated conductivity of the ring atmosphere is less than that of Saturn's ionosphere; and the nondetection of fluorescent atomic oxygen over the rings constrains the molecular column from which it is produced via photo-dissociation. These latter limits are independent of production and loss rates and are only weakly dependent on temperature. From the three independent methods described, we obtain similar limits: N n ≲ 2 × 10 15 cm −2 . The mean free path for collisions between neutrals thus cannot be very much smaller than the scale height.