Detection of lightning in Saturn's Northern Hemisphere

Abstract

During Cassini flyby of Saturn at a radial distance 6.18R_s (Saturn Radius), a signal was detected from about 200 to 430 Hz that had the proper dispersion characteristics to be a whistler. The frequency-time dispersion of the whistler was found to be 81 Hz1/2s. Based on this dispersion constant, we determined, from a travel time computation, that the whistler must have originated from lightning in the northern hemisphere of Saturn. Using a simple centrifugal potential model consisting of water group ions, and hydrogen ions we also determine the fractional concentration and scale height that gave the best fit to the observed dispersion.