Titanʹs induced magnetosphere Original Research Article

Titan possesses an extensive atmosphere and ionosphere and no obvious significant intrinsic magnetic field. Its ionosphere directly interacts with the surrounding plasma environment, forming an induced magnetosphere. Titan was located in Saturnʹs outer magnetosphere at the time of the Voyager encounter, where that interaction is subsonic, superAlfvénic and submagnetosonic. We present results on Titanʹs induced magnetosphere from numerical simulations for the Voyager encounter scenario, for other locations around Titanʹs orbit, and for a case when Titanʹs orbit at 20 Saturn radii is outside the magnetosphere. The comparison of Titanʹs induced magnetosphere with other induced magnetospheres at Venus, Mars, and other planetary satellites is briefly considered.