The dust halo of Saturn's largest icy moon, Rhea.

Saturn's moon Rhea had been considered massive enough to retain a thin, externally generated atmosphere capable of locally affecting Saturn's magnetosphere. The Cassini spacecraft's in situ observations reveal that energetic electrons are depleted in the moon's vicinity. The absence of a substantial exosphere implies that Rhea's magnetospheric interaction region, rather than being exclusively induced by sputtered gas and its products, likely contains solid material that can absorb magnetospheric particles. Combined observations from several instruments suggest that this material is in the form of grains and boulders up to several decimetres in size and orbits Rhea as an equatorial debris disk. Within this disk may reside denser, discrete rings or arcs of material.

Enceladus' varying imprint on the magnetosphere of Saturn.

The bombardment of Saturn's moon Enceladus by >20-kiloelectron volt magnetospheric particles causes particle flux depletions in regions magnetically connected to its orbit. Irrespective of magnetospheric activity, proton depletions are persistent, whereas electron depletions are quickly erased by magnetospheric processes. Observations of these signatures by Cassini's Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument allow remote monitoring of Enceladus' gas and dust environments. This reveals substantial outgassing variability at the moon and suggests increased dust concentrations at its Lagrange points. The characteristics of the particle depletions additionally provide key radial diffusion coefficients for energetic electrons and an independent measure of the inner magnetosphere's rotation velocity.

Anti-planetward auroral electron beams at Saturn.

Strong discrete aurorae on Earth are excited by electrons, which are accelerated along magnetic field lines towards the planet. Surprisingly, electrons accelerated in the opposite direction have been recently observed. The mechanisms and significance of this anti-earthward acceleration are highly uncertain because only earthward acceleration was traditionally considered, and observations remain limited. It is also unclear whether upward acceleration of the electrons is a necessary part of the auroral process or simply a special feature of Earth's complex space environment. Here we report anti-planetward acceleration of electron beams in Saturn's magnetosphere along field lines that statistically map into regions of aurora. The energy spectrum of these beams is qualitatively similar to the ones observed at Earth, and the energy fluxes in the observed beams are comparable with the energies required to excite Saturn's aurora. These beams, along with the observations at Earth and the barely understood electron beams in Jupiter's magnetosphere, demonstrate that anti-planetward acceleration is a universal feature of aurorae. The energy contained in the beams shows that upward acceleration is an essential part of the overall auroral process.

Dynamics of Saturn's magnetosphere from MIMI during Cassini's orbital insertion.

The Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument (MIMI) onboard the Cassini spacecraft observed the saturnian magnetosphere from January 2004 until Saturn orbit insertion (SOI) on 1 July 2004. The MIMI sensors observed frequent energetic particle activity in interplanetary space for several months before SOI. When the imaging sensor was switched to its energetic neutral atom (ENA) operating mode on 20 February 2004, at approximately 10(3) times Saturn's radius RS (0.43 astronomical units), a weak but persistent signal was observed from the magnetosphere. About 10 days before SOI, the magnetosphere exhibited a day-night asymmetry that varied with an approximately 11-hour periodicity. Once Cassini entered the magnetosphere, in situ measurements showed high concentrations of H+, H2+, O+, OH+, and H2O+ and low concentrations of N+. The radial dependence of ion intensity profiles implies neutral gas densities sufficient to produce high loss rates of trapped ions from the middle and inner magnetosphere. ENA imaging has revealed a radiation belt that resides inward of the D ring and is probably the result of double charge exchange between the main radiation belt and the upper layers of Saturn's exosphere.

Three-dimensional magnetic field topology in a region of solar coronal heating.

Flares and X-ray jets on the Sun arise in active regions where magnetic flux emerges from the solar interior amd interacts with the ambient magnetic field. The interactions are believed to occur in electric current sheets separating regions of opposite magnetic polarity. The current sheets located in the corona or upper chromosphere have long been thought to act as an important source of coronal heating, requiring their location in the corona or upper chromosphere. The dynamics and energetics of these sheets are governed by a complex magnetic field structure that, until now, has been difficult to measure. Here we report the determination of the full magnetic vector in an interaction region near the base of the solar corona. The observations reveal two magnetic features that characterize young active regions on the Sun: a set of rising magnetic loops and a tangential discontinuity of the magnetic field direction, the latter being the observational signature of an electric current sheet. This provides strong support for coronal heating models based on the dissipation of magnetic energy at current sheets.

Methanol in human breath.

Using proton transfer reaction-mass spectrometry for trace gas analysis of the human breath, the concentrations of methanol and ethanol have been measured for various test persons consuming alcoholic beverages and various amounts of fruits, respectively. The methanol concentrations increased from a natural (physiological) level of approximately 0.4 ppm up to approximately 2 ppm a few hours after eating about 1/2 kg of fruits, and about the same concentration was reached after drinking of 100 ml brandy containing 24% volume of ethanol and 0.19% volume of methanol.