Cassini's first surprise: Saturn's magnetic field unlike Earth's

sfgate.com ^ | 6/29/04 | David Perlman

[LibWhacker]

Ringed planet's poles are on either side of its equator

Pasadena -- The spacecraft called Cassini, now little more than a million miles from Saturn, is already establishing that the mysterious ringed planet's magnetic field is bizarrely unlike Earth's -- and more surprises are sure to come.

Cassini's interplanetary course is to carry it Wednesday night into the first of 76 orbits around Saturn to begin its four-year mission, and scientists are awaiting that first close-in encounter with some anxiety.

[martin_fierro]

On Earth, and on Jupiter as well, the magnetic poles are located at the northern and southern extremes of both planets. For us Earthlings, that fact gives us the shimmering colored curtains of the aurora borealis, the northern lights -- and the southern lights, too, for those living in the far Southern Hemisphere.
But the two instruments aboard Cassini that are measuring the size, the strength and the shape of Saturn's magnetic field have confirmed that the field is aligned with Saturn's axis of rotation. Its poles are located on either side of the planet's equator, instead of at the northern and southern extremes.

Wild.

[Cloud William]

Fascinating. I wonder how the rings are situated relative to the equator.

[Consort]

I blame it on the rings. Yeah, it's those rings.

[Fiddlstix]

I blame it on the rings. Yeah, it's those rings.

Naw! You should've learned by now......

[LibWhacker]

I'm pretty sure they're in the equatorial plane . . .

[martin_fierro]

[LibWhacker]

Here's crossing my fingers it makes it through the rings without hitting anything!

[titanae]

This is not new at all. Back in 25 years ago, when the Pioneer 11 flied by Saturn, we already measured the highly axisysmetric magnetic field of Saturn. The later flybys by Voyager 1 in 1980 and Voyager 2 in 1981 also confirmed this unique feature of Saturn's field.

This is of course of the interests of planetary dynamo scientists and make it extremely difficult to define Saturn's rotation period based on the non-axisysmetic field modulation.

The newly returned data from SOI shows almost the same field structure as we left 25 years ago. All internal field parameters remains the same ( the zonal coefficinets) and still very small non-axisysmetric field.

And there is actually a failure with the magnetic field measurements. There are two magnetometers onboard Cassini, Fluxgate (FGM) and Vector helium ( VHM), however due to some human being mistakes, the VHM was forgot to turn on during the most valuable SOI. So only FGM returned data.

[SunkenCiv]

:')

[SunkenCiv]

Earth's Magnetic Field Weakens 10 Percent (and some other stuff)
Yahoo News | 12/12/03 | Andrew Bridges - AP
Posted on 12/12/2003 6:26:01 PM PST by NormsRevenge
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1039487/posts

Earth's magnetic poles on verge of flipping
World Net Daily | December 12, 2003
Posted on 12/13/2003 8:38:30 PM PST by gitmo
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1039977/posts

Pole reversal: Feared "flip" of Earth's magnetic field takes 7,000 years [DOOM!]
Agence France-Presse | April 7, 2004 | AFP
Posted on 04/07/2004 9:13:52 PM PDT by AntiGuv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1113501/posts

NYT: COLLAPSE OF THE EARTH'S MAGNETIC FIELD ACCELERATES (Via Drudge)
Drudge Report | 7/12/04 | Drudge
Posted on 07/12/2004 4:05:31 PM PDT by mkj6080
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1170023/posts

Collapse of Magnetic Field Accelerates
New York Times... | 7/12/04
Posted on 07/12/2004 7:44:32 PM PDT by Cheetah1
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1170131/posts

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from 6/29/2004. Thanks LibWhacker.

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