Advances on the magnetospheric dynamics of Saturn revealed from UVIS/Cassini auroral observations during the Grand finale phase of the mission

Auroral observations are a powerful tool to study the magnetospheric processes as they provide a ‘global picture’ of the magnetosphere at once. Here we present UVIS/Cassini auroral observations during the Grand Finale phase of the mission. As the spacecraft approaches closely Saturn’s poles it offers an unprecedented view of the dayside and nightside auroral regions. Auroral observations which have been recently analysed from the beginning of the F-ring orbits reveal dusk/midnight arcs with a large latitudinal extent, suggesting that they are related to a source region extending from the outer to middle/inner magnetosphere. Their presence is shown to initiate dawn auroral enhancements and poleward expansions which display irregular shaped structures. Following the terrestrial example, we suggest that at Saturn the dusk/midnight arcs (possible signatures of planetward propagating plasma flows) might have caused a magnetospheric reconfiguration event, which is manifested as enhancement and poleward expansion of the dawn aurora. While the aforementioned discussion provides only the results based on the early Cassini F-ring orbits, we will also present auroral observations from the upcoming orbits with conjugate in-situ measurements. In particular, we will discuss the advances on magnetospheric dynamics at Saturn through the eyes of UVIS, during the final months of the mission.