Related papers: Equilibrium composition between liquid and clathra…

According to clues left by the Cassini mission, Titan, one of the two Solar System bodies with a hydrologic cycle, may harbor liquid hydrocarbon-based analogs of our terrestrial aquifers, referred to as "alkanofers". On the Earth, petroleum…

Ethane is expected to be the dominant photochemical product on Titan's surface and, in the absence of a process that sequesters it from exposed surface reservoirs, a major constituent of its lakes and seas. Absorption of Cassini's 2.2 cm…

Hundreds of radar-dark patches interpreted as lakes have been discovered in the north and south polar regions of Titan. We have estimated the composition of these lakes by using the direct abundance measurements from the Gas Chromatograph…

Between 2004 and 2007 the instruments of the CASSINI spacecraft discovered hydrocarbon lakes in the polar regions of Titan. We have developed a lake-atmosphere equilibrium model allowing the determination of the chemical composition of…

We use a statistical thermodynamic approach to determine the composition of clathrate hydrates which may form from a multiple compound gas whose composition is similar to that of Titan's atmosphere. Assuming that noble gases are initially…

Titan has an abundance of lakes and seas, as confirmed by Cassini. Major components of these liquid bodies include methane ($CH_4$) and ethane ($C_2H_6$); however, evidence indicates that minor components such as ethylene ($C_2H_4$) may…

Titan, the main satellite of Saturn, has an active cycle of methane in its troposphere. Among other evidence for a mechanism of evaporation at work on the ground, dry lakebeds have been discovered. Recent Cassini infrared observations of…

Saturn's moon Titan is the only extraterrestrial body known to host stable lakes and a hydrological cycle. Titan's lakes predominantly contain liquid methane, ethane, and nitrogen, with methane evaporation driving its hydrological cycle.…

Numerous geological features that could be evaporitic in origin have been identified on the surface of Titan. Although they seem to be water-ice poor, their main properties -chemical composition, thickness, stratification- are essentially…

Titan's abundant lakes and seas exchange methane vapor and energy with the atmosphere via a process generally known as air-sea interaction. This turbulent exchange process is investigated with an atmospheric mesoscale model coupled to a…

Images from instruments on Cassini as well as from telescopes on the ground reveal the presence of sporadic small-scale cloud activity in the cold late-winter north polar of Saturn's large moon Titan. These clouds lie underneath the…

We review the reservoirs of methane clathrates that may exist in the different bodies of the Solar System. Methane was formed in the interstellar medium prior to having been embedded in the protosolar nebula gas phase. This molecule was…

During the accretion of Titan, impact heating may have been sufficient to allow the global melting of water ice and the release of volatile compounds, mainly constituted of CO2, CH4 and NH3. The duration and efficiency of exchange between…

We retrieve vertical and meridional variations of methane mole fraction in Titan's lower troposphere by re-analyzing near-infrared ground-based observations from 17 July 2014 UT (Adamkovics et al., 2016). We generate synthetic spectra using…

Aptly named, ice giants such as Uranus and Neptune contain significant amounts of water. While this water cannot be present near the cloud tops, it must be abundant in the deep interior. We investigate the likelihood of a liquid water ocean…

Atmospheric photochemistry on Titan continuously transforms methane and nitrogen gases into various organic compounds. This study explores the fate of these molecules when they land on Titan's surface. Our analytical exploration reveals…

Methanol is a potentially important impurity in subsurface oceans on Titan and Enceladus. We report measurements of the freezing of methanol-water samples at pressures up to 350~MPa using a volumetric cell with sapphire windows. For low…

In this article I summarize the current state of knowledge about the composition of Titan's atmosphere, and our current understanding of the suggested chemistry that leads to that observed composition. I begin with our present knowledge of…

As the only icy satellite with a thick atmosphere and liquids on its surface, Titan represents a unique end-member to study the impact cratering process. Unlike craters on other Saturnian satellites, Titan's craters are preferentially…

On Titan, methane (CH4) and ethane (C2H6) are the dominant species found in the lakes and seas. In this study, we have combined laboratory work and modeling to refine the methane-ethane binary phase diagram at low temperatures and probe how…