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Register a new userHerschel map of Saturns stratospheric water, delivered by the plumes of Enceladus
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Added by
Thibault Cavali\\'e
Publication date
2019
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
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Context. The origin of water in the stratospheres of Giant Planets has been an outstanding question ever since its first detection by ISO some 20 years ago. Water can originate from interplanetary dust particles, icy rings and satellites and large comet impacts. Analysis of Herschel Space Observatory observations have proven that the bulk of Jupiters stratospheric water was delivered by the Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacts in 1994. In 2006, the Cassini mission detected water plumes at the South Pole of Enceladus, placing the moon as a serious candidate for Saturns stratospheric water. Further evidence was found in 2011, when Herschel demonstrated the presence of a water torus at the orbital distance of Enceladus, fed by the moons plumes. Finally, water falling from the rings onto Saturns uppermost atmospheric layers at low latitudes was detected during the final orbits of Cassinis end-of-mission plunge into the atmosphere. Aims. In this paper, we use Herschel mapping observations of water in Saturns stratosphere to identify its source. Methods. Several empirical models are tested against the Herschel-HIFI and -PACS observations, which were collected on December 30, 2010, and January 2nd, 2011 (respectively). Results. We demonstrate that Saturns stratospheric water is not uniformly mixed as a function of latitude, but peaking at the equator and decreasing poleward with a Gaussian distribution. We obtain our best fit with an equatorial mole fraction 1.1 ppb and a half-width at half-maximum of 25{deg}, when accounting for a temperature increase in the two warm stratospheric vortices produced by Saturns Great Storm of 2010-2011. Conclusions. This work demonstrates that Enceladus is the main source of Saturns stratospheric water.
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