Saturn's Ionosphere

TL;DR

This paper reviews current knowledge of Saturn's ionosphere, emphasizing new data from Cassini, recent ground-based observations, and discusses model-data discrepancies to guide future research.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of Saturn's ionosphere, highlighting recent discoveries and identifying gaps between models and observations to inform future studies.

Findings

Cassini data significantly increased electron density profiles.

Detection of 'ring rain' effects on Saturn's ionosphere.

Current models show discrepancies with observations.

Abstract

This chapter summarizes our current understanding of the ionosphere of Saturn. We give an overview of Saturn ionospheric science from the Voyager era to the present, with a focus on the wealth of new data and discoveries enabled by Cassini, including a massive increase in the number of electron density altitude profiles. We discuss recent ground-based detection of the effect of "ring rain" on Saturn's ionosphere, and present possible model interpretations of the observations. Finally, we outline current model-data discrepancies and indicate how future observations can help in advancing our understanding of the various controlling physical and chemical processes.