Abstract
ABSTRACT Every 19 yr, Saturn passes through Jupiter’s ‘flapping’ magnetotail. Here, we report Chandra X-ray observations of Saturn planned to coincide with this rare planetary alignment and to analyse Saturn’s magnetospheric response when transitioning to this unique parameter space. We analyse three Director’s Discretionary Time (DDT) observations from the High Resolution Camera (HRC-I) on-board Chandra, taken on 2020 November 19, 21, and 23 with the aim to find auroral and/or disc emissions. We infer the conditions in the kronian system by looking at coincident soft X-ray solar flux data from the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) and Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations of Saturn’s ultraviolet (UV) auroral emissions. The large Saturn–Sun–Earth angle during this time would mean that most flares from the Earth-facing side of the Sun would not have impacted Saturn. We find no significant detection of Saturn’s disc or auroral emissions in any of our observations. We calculate the 3σ upper band energy flux of Saturn during this time to be 0.9–3.04 × 10−14 erg cm−2 s−1 which agrees with fluxes found from previous modelled spectra of the disc emissions. We conclude by discussing the implications of this non-detection and how it is imperative that the next fleet of X-ray telescope (such as Athena and the Lynx mission concept) continue to observe Saturn with their improved spatial and spectral resolution and very enhanced sensitivity to help us finally solve the mysteries behind Saturn’s apparently elusive X-ray aurora.
Highlights
The magnetospheres of Jupiter and Saturn are considered to be theA two largest coherent structures in our Solar System with most of the plasma supplied by their moons and a variable interaction with the upstream solar wind (Blanc et al 2015; Bolton et al 2015)
We report the first Chandra Director’s Discretionary Time (DDT) observations of Saturn using Chandra’s High Resolution Camera (HRC-I) as well as the first X-ray observations designed to look at a planet’s magnetospheric response found the X-ray flux of Saturn to be greater than one order of magduring this rare planetary alignment
We look at data from Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) to monitor the solar activity during each of the observations
Summary
A two largest coherent structures in our Solar System with most of the plasma supplied by their moons and a variable interaction with the upstream solar wind (Blanc et al 2015; Bolton et al 2015). The dropouts were an indicator of intervals when Saturn was within Jupiter’s magnetotail and were used as a tracer for the tail’s apparent flapping motion During this time, no observations of Saturn’s auroral emissions in UV or X-ray wavelengths were taken and the global context for Saturn’s magnetospheric response to such rare external conditions was not fully captured. Branduardi-Raymont et al (2010) re-analyse the previous I X-ray campaigns as well as two XMM-Newton observations in 2005 R and found that Saturn’s disk emissions were well correlated with the solar cycle. We assume that Saturn’s magnitude than the Gilman et al’s modelled bremsstrahlung flux They netosphere will experience more powerful fluctuations as it moves from very rarefied plasma in Jupiter’s tail to the denser solar wind (i.e. moving from densities of ∼ 10−3 - 10−5 cm−3 to ∼ 0.01 0.5 cm−3 of the typical solar wind). We conclude the paper by discussing our results and the implications of a non-detection of Saturn over the Chandra campaign and how the generation of X-ray telescopes could help aid our understanding of Saturn’s X-ray emissions
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