Summer Undergraduate Research Intern
Worked in Prof. Yueh-Ning Lee's Laboratory of Theoretical Astrophysics at the Department of Earth Sciences.Saturn's diffuse E-ring is produced by the material ejected from the geologically active icy satellite Enceladus. As icy grains are thrown to space via the plume activity of the satellite, they are subject to several forces such as gravity and the Lorentz force. Having left Enceladus, their mass and charge both vary due to sublimation resultant of radiation mechanisms and charging effects from the magnetospheric plasma environment. The resultant: a diverse population of icy grains whose orbital fate lies in their charge-to-mass ratio. • Studied through Hamiltonian analysis the trajectories of icy grains subject to orbital perturbations within the E-ring.• Provided a suspect for the profile of a gas associated with peculiar non-Keplerian gas emissions around Enceladus from recent ALMA observations.• Communicated research insights to student cohort and senior astronomers from the Theoretical and Computational Astrophysics (TCA) thematic group from the National Center for Theoretical Sciences (NCTS) through an oral presentation titled “Gravito-Electrodynamics of Gas from Sublimated Charged Icy Grains in the Saturnian E-Ring.”
