The peak frequency source of Saturn’s Kilometric Radiation

Before to ultimately plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere, the Cassini spacecraft explored between 2016 and 2017 the auroral regions of Saturn’s magnetosphere, where rises the Saturn’s Kilometric Radiation (SKR). This powerful, nonthermal, radio emission analog to Earth’s Auroral Kilometric Radiation, is radiated through the Cyclotron Maser Instability (CMI) by mildly relativistic electrons at frequencies close to the local electron gyrofrequency. The typical SKR spectrum, which ranges from a few kHz to ~1MHz, thus corresponds to auroral magnetic flux tubes populated by radiosources at altitudes ranging from ~4 kronian radii (Rs) down to the planetary ionosphere.  During the F-ring orbital sequence, Cassini probed the outer part of both northern and southern auroral regions, ranging from ~2.5 to ~4 Rs altitudes, and crossed several SKR low frequency sources (~10-30 kHz). Their analysis showed that the radiosources strongly vary with time and local time, with the lowest frequencies reached on the dawn sector. They were additionally colocated with the UV auroral oval and controlled by local time-variable magnetospheric electron densities, with importants consequences for the use SKR low frequency extensions as a proxy of magnetospheric dynamics. Along the proximal orbits, Cassini then explored auroral altitudes below ~2.5 Rs and crossed numerous, deeper, SKR sources at frequencies close to, or within the emission peak frequency (~80-200 kHz). Here, we present preliminary results of their survey analysis. Understanding how the CMI operates in the widely different environments of solar system magnetized planets has direct implications for the ongoing search of radio emissions from exoplanets, ultracool dwarves or stars.