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| INSTITUTET FÖR RYMDFYSIK | UPPSALA |
 |
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| Swedish Institute of Space Physics | (59°50.272′N, 17°38.786′E) |
Project work (30 c)/Examensarbete (30 hp) [Master thesis]
Electron Temperature in Titan's Ionosphere
Student: Omid Talaee, Uppsala UniversitySupervisors: Jan-Erik Wahlund and Karin Ågren
Period: Spring 2012
Background
The Swedish Institute for Space Physics in Uppsala is responsible for the operation and data analysis of one instrument, a Langmuir probe, on board the international spacecraft Cassini now orbiting Saturn. This master's project concerns the analysis of data from this still operational instrument from flybys of Titan.
Project
Use the Langmuir Probe (LP) analysis tools to estimate the electron temperature (Te) from the Langmuir probe current characteristics sampled from over 70 flybys of the Saturn moon Titan. Each flyby (±15 min around closest approach) consists of a series of LP sweeps (24 s resolution) and each sweep gives a value of Te. Each average time of a sweep corresponds to a specific altitude, longitude, latitude and solar zenith angle (SZA) that can be extracted from the Cassini ephemeris. Moreover, for each flyby (dividing inbound and outbound parts) the surrounding magnetospheric activity level can be inferred. The task is to analyse the sweeps from new flybys, add these Te values to the old database, extract the ephemeris for the Te database, and then analyse the distribution of these Te versus the dependency parameters mentioned above. Maps of Te around Titan shall be the end product. These data will be useful for interpreting recombination coefficients of ion-molecular reactions in Titan's ionosphere.
Results
Final report
![[Cassini at titan]](../../img/cassini-titan.jpg)
Artist's impression of Cassini at Titan (Image credit: NASA/JPL)