Saturn ICARUS paper

[Quark]

Hi All,

Have just received the Elsevier authors share link for my latest co-authored peer reviewed Saturn paper. The link will work for 50 days through to Nov 4th 2022. My good friend and fellow OZ amateur Anthony Wesley is also a co-author.

https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1fljy4L-Yf9aK

Regards
Trevor

[rustigsmed]

well done and congrats Trevor and Wesley!

[Dave882]

Wonderful work!! Thanks for sharing
I had a flick through the paper and while I’m not going to pretend I understood it all wow I did find it extremely interesting! The very thought of cyclonic vortexes and lightning storms 10000x more powerful than on earth….. :eyepop: please tell me Cassini actually get a shot of some lightning or was it just the radio waves it’s was picking up??

Congrats on the paper!!

[Quark]

Thanks very much Russell.

Thanks very much Dave,

The Saturn lightning or SED's (Saturn Electrostatic Discharge) were detected by the Cassini RPWS (Radio and Plasma Wave Science) instrument. This instrument used three wip antennae to pick up radio data from the lightning discharge within Saturn's atmosphere. If you have a radio on and there is a lightning storm nearby every time there is a discharge of lightning you hear static on your radio, this is how the RPWS instrument worked.

Saturn has three distinct cloud layers to a depth of about 200km. An upper cloud layer of frozen ammonia crystals, a mid layer of ammonium hydro-sulfide crystals and a lower layer of water ice crystals. The water ice crystals have potential energy.

From time to time a poorly understood heat source deep within the planet drives material from the water ice crystal cloud layer into rapid vertical motion at approx 100m/s. The water ice crystals now in motion are rubbing against one another and have kinetic energy, they develop charge until finally they discharge causing an outburst of SED's which are then detected by the Cassini RPWS instrument so long as Cassini is on the same side of Saturn relative to the SED's.

This is happening still relatively deep within the atmosphere. The up welling column of material originating from the water ice crystal layer bursts though the upper cloud layer. This is quite different material from that of the upper cloud layer and I would image a white spot.

Whenever Cassini RPWS detected SED's Georg Fischer from Cassini RPWS would contact our group with the challenge to hunt down the optical counterpart to his RPWS radio source.

Of course the absolute highlight of all this was The Great Storm of 2010/2011. Cassini RPWS detected a massive amount of SED's early in December 2010, by the third week of January 2011 so much material had been dredged up that it completely encircled the planet at that latitude and it remained active for months.

[multiweb]

Congrats to both Trev. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:
Great read about those storms.

[Crater101]

As someone who has been in the field of education most of his life, and often surrounded by people who are determined to be "published" even if what they publish is just old work re-done, may I offer my sincere congratulations on your paper. There are a few full-time academics who could take lessons from it. Well done.

[Quark]

Thanks so much Warren, we live at an amazing time regarding the impact dedicated amateurs can have in the field of astronomy. More than ever the work of amateurs is contributing to advancements in astronomy. My field is planetary science, my specialty is Saturn and it is extremely satisfying to see the work of amateurs published in peer reviewed science journals.

[Quark]

Thanks very much Marc.

[gary]

Hi Trevor,

Thanks for the link and congratulations to you and Anthony and all those involved!



You would think with a USD3.2 billion spacecraft it would be game, set
and match, but it is fantastic you could correlate and confirm the front-row
seat observations it was making with more modestly priced kit in your
own backyards. You two though are the "special sauce" that make this
possible through your dedication, skill and passion. We're blown away!

[Quark]

Thanks very much Gary, certainly very satisfying for both of us that our data is captured with home made telescopes and that our work is valued by the professionals.

[kencas]

That is a really interesting read Trevor! Well done on the correlation between Cassini readings and those you have achieved yourself. This is no small feat!
The other side of reading this is reliving a Metrology conference I attended with the Australian National Measurement Institute a number of years ago. Just about everything discussed during the conference went over my head, but of that very small amount I could comprehend I came away feeling like I had learnt something very very new and exciting. So thank you for allowing me to learn something new and exciting again!
Kind regards,
Ken