Yan Xu
Lead author of the April 2026 Nature Communications paper analyzing 2004-2010 Cassini magnetometer data to characterize the structure of saturn’s magnetic cusp. The paper found the cusp sits in the afternoon sector — produced by Saturn’s rapid rotation combined with enceladus-supplied plasma — extending the rotation-dominated magnetospheric regime previously observed at Jupiter. UCL / Lancaster University collaboration with co-author andrew-coates. (src-cassini-huygens-ocean-worlds-2026-04)