Related papers: Discovery of lake-effect clouds on Titan
Saturn's moon Titan possesses stratospheric zonal winds that places it among a sparse class of planetary bodies known to have superrotation in their atmospheres. Few measurements have been made of these speeds in the upper stratosphere,…
Our analysis of Cassini/VIMS near-infrared spectra of Saturn's Great Storm of 2010-2011 reveals a multi-component aerosol composition comprised primarily of ammonia ice, with a significant component of water ice. The most likely third…
Winds in Titan's lower and middle atmosphere have been determined by a variety of techniques, including direct measurements from the Huygens Probe over 0-150 km, Doppler shifts of molecular spectral lines in the optical, thermal infrared…
Trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) in the outer Solar System are predominantly small, icy worlds long presumed to be atmosphereless except for the largest bodies. Until now, Pluto has been unique among TNOs in exhibiting a substantial…
The Earth is no longer the only known celestial body containing one or more liquid phases. The Cassini spacecraft has discovered seas of hydrocarbons at the surface of Titan, while a series of corroborating evidences argue in favour of the…
On the basis of gravity and radar observations with the Cassini spacecraft, the moment of inertia of Titan and the orientation of Titan's rotation axis have been estimated in recent studies. According to the observed orientation, Titan is…
Tidal dissipation inside giant planets is important for the orbital evolution of their natural satellites. It is conventionally treated by parameterized equilibrium tidal theory, in which the tidal torque declines rapidly with distance, and…
The formation mechanisms of the ice giants Uranus and Neptune, and the origin of their elemental and isotopic compositions, have long been debated. The density of solids in the outer protosolar nebula is too low to explain their formation,…
The Cassini mission offered us the opportunity to monitor the seasonal evolution of Titan's atmosphere from 2004 to 2017, i.e. half a Titan year. The lower part of the stratosphere (pressures greater than 10 mbar) is a region of particular…
It has been suggested that the north-polar hexagon found on Saturn is an unusual Rossby wave. If this is to be the case, one must not only explain how a Rossby wave can be hexagonal in shape, albeit with curved corners, but also why it is…
A significant difference in Titan's ionospheric electron density is observed between the T118 and T119 Cassini nightside flybys. These flybys had similar geometry, occurred at the same Saturn local time and while Titan was exposed to…
One of the many exciting revelations of the New Horizons flyby of Pluto was the observation of global haze layers at altitudes as high as 200 km in the visible wavelengths. This haze is produced in the upper atmosphere through photochemical…
Titan's moment of inertia, calculated assuming hydrostatic equilibrium from gravity field data obtained during the Cassini-Huygens mission, implies an internal mass distribution that may be incompatible with complete differentiation. This…
The small number of impact craters found on Titan suggests that its surface is relatively young. Previous work estimated its surface age to be between 200 and 1000 Myr. This estimate, however, is based on crater scaling laws for water and…
Over the south pole of Enceladus, an icy moon of Saturn, geysers eject water into space in a striped pattern, making Enceladus one of the most attractive destinations in the search for extraterrestrial life. We explore the ocean dynamics…
Vinyl cyanide (C$_2$H$_3$CN) is theorized to form in Titan's atmosphere via high-altitude photochemistry and is of interest regarding the astrobiology of cold planetary surfaces due to its predicted ability to form cell membrane-like…
We revisit the evidence for a "dust cloud" observed by the Cassini spacecraft at Saturn in 2006. The simultaneous data of 3 instruments are compared to interpret the signatures of a coherent swarm of dust that could have remained floating…
Titan's atmosphere is a natural laboratory for exploring the photochemical synthesis of organic molecules. Significant recent advances in the study of the atmosphere of Titan include: (a) detection of C$_3$ molecules: C$_3$H$_6$,…
Uranus provides a unique laboratory to test our understanding of planetary atmospheres under extreme conditions. Multi-spectral observations from Voyager, ground-based observatories, and space telescopes have revealed a delicately banded…
Titan, with its thick and hazy atmosphere, is a key world in our solar system for understanding light scattering processes. NASA's Cassini mission monitored Titan between 2004 and 2017, where the derived dataset includes a large number of…