Die Quelle des E Rings - das Enceladus Rätsel

E环的来源——土卫二之谜

• 批准号: 23856830
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Frank Spahn, Ph.D.
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Institut für Geologische Wissenschaften
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2005-12-31 至 2009-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/23856830?language=en
• 关键词: Die; Quelle; des; Rings; das

The sensational observations of the Cassini-Spacecraft during its close flyby at the E ring moon Enceladus (July 14th, 2005) open up completely new vistas on the creation, dynamics and sustainment of this largest ring of Saturn. We want to derive a kinetic model of this largest circum-planetary dust configuration in our Solar system by considering proper sources, dynamics and sinks in this region. While the sinks of the E ring dust are more or less known, the knowledge about the sources and the dust dynamics underwent substantial changes through to the recent Cassini observations. Cryovolcanism at Enceladus surface has to be considered as the main dust creation-process in addition to micro-meteoroid bombardment and the resulting particle ejecta (the latter process is possibly also relevant for Tethys). Moreover, the geophysical activities seem to exclusively occur at Enceladus south pole where beyond ice splitter also neutral gas is spit in the E ring region. This gas can sensitively influence the plasma- and magnetospheric environment in the vicinity of Enceladus orbit, and thus, the charging processes of the E ring particles. The major goal of this project is to theoretically investigate whether the CDA-data of the E ring in the vicinity of its main sources carry information about the process of particle creation and ejection at Enceladus and Tethys. This implies the question: How does the cryovolcanism at Enceladus influence the subsequent dynamics and with it the configuration of the whole E ring?

卡西尼号太空船在近距离飞越土卫二E环时（2005年7月14日）的惊人观测为这个最大的土星环的创造，动力学和维持开辟了全新的前景。我们希望通过考虑该区域的适当来源、动力学和汇，推导出太阳系中这一最大的行星尘埃配置的动力学模型。虽然E环尘埃的下沉或多或少是已知的，但有关来源和尘埃动力学的知识在最近的卡西尼号观测中发生了重大变化。土卫二表面的冰冻火山活动被认为是除了微流星体撞击和由此产生的粒子喷出物之外的主要尘埃产生过程（后一个过程可能也与特提斯有关）。此外，地球物理活动似乎只发生在土卫二南极，在冰分裂器之外，E环区域也有中性气体喷出。这种气体可以敏感地影响土卫二轨道附近的等离子体和磁层环境，从而影响E环粒子的充电过程。该项目的主要目标是从理论上研究在其主要来源附近的E环的CDA数据是否携带有关Enceladus和Tethys粒子产生和喷射过程的信息。这意味着问题：土卫二的冰火山活动如何影响随后的动力学以及整个E环的结构？