Titans plasma interaction

BERTUCCI, C.

Congreso; Magnetospheres of Outer Planets; 2018

Titan is the epitome of a multivariate plasma interaction between a dense atmosphere and awind of plasma. Located in the confines of Saturn´s rotating magnetosphere, Titan´s usually interacts subsonically with the flapping magnetodisk of its parent planet. This interaction is unlike any other atmospheric body of the solar system as the directions of the incoming flow and the solar photons vary as a function of the moon´s orbital phase. There are times, however, when the solar wind pressure is strong enough to leave Titan in the shocked and even in the supersonic solar wind, where a colissionless bow shock was detected. In these cases, the enrichment of the external plasma with Titan´s cold and sometimes heavy ions leads to complex magnetic field morphologies from which the history of its magnetic environment can be reconstructed. This effect, negligible at Mars and Venus, is another essential characteristic of Titan´s plasma interaction. In this talk we will review these and other results from the Cassini spacecraft around Titan and identify some open questions that could be addressed in the near future.