Saturn Kilometric Radiation Near a Source Center on Day 73, 2008
Schippers, P.; Gurnett, D. A.; Kurth, W. S.; Cecconi, B.; Lamy, L.; Santolik, O.; Ye, S. -Y.; Menietti, J. D.; Mutel, R. L.
United States, Czech Republic, France
Abstract
The Cassini spacecraft flew very near a source region of Saturn kilometric radiation (SKR) on day 073 of 2008. This is the second known encounter with a source region at high latitude. The radio and plasma wave instrument, RPWS, observed intense SKR in the extraordinary (X) mode. The electron low-energy spectrometer (ELS) obtained a phase space distribution of sufficient energy and pitch angle resolution to allow growth rate calculations for the observed wave emissions. There is evidence of a shell or horseshoe electron plasma distribution that is unstable to the growth of SKR via the cyclotron maser instability. We present results of these calculations for comparison with a previously reported source region encounter.