Published in

American Astronomical Society, Astrophysical Journal, 2(644), p. L137-L139, 2006

DOI: 10.1086/505750

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The Enceladus and OH Tori at Saturn

This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

The remarkable observation that Enceladus, a small icy satellite of Saturn, is actively venting has led to the suggestion that ejected water molecules are the source of the toroidal atmosphere observed at Saturn for over a decade using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Here we show that the venting leads directly to a new feature, a narrow Enceladus neutral torus. The larger torus, observed using HST, is populated by charge exchange, the process that limits the lifetime of the neutrals in the Enceladus torus.