English
Related papers

Related papers: Probing Saturn's tropospheric cloud with Cassini/V…

200 papers

We use solar occultations observed by the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer aboard the Cassini Spacecraft to extract the 1 to 5 micron transmission spectrum of Saturn, as if it were a transiting exoplanet. We detect absorption from…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2015-12-09 Paul A. Dalba , Philip S. Muirhead , Jonathan J. Fortney , Matthew M. Hedman , Philip D. Nicholson , Mark J. Veyette

The incredible longevity of Cassini's orbital mission at Saturn has provided the most comprehensive exploration of a seasonal giant planet to date. This review explores Saturn's changing global temperatures, composition, and aerosol…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2023-05-09 L. N. Fletcher , L. Sromovsky , V. Hue , J. I. Moses , S. Guerlet , R. A. West , T. Koskinen

We present an analysis of the VIMS solar occultations dataset, which allows us to extract vertically resolved information on the characteristics of Titan's atmosphere between 100-700 km with a characteristic vertical resolution of 10 km.…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2014-11-21 L. Maltagliati , B. Bézard , S. Vinatier , M. M. Hedman , E. Lellouch , P. D. Nicholson , C. Sotin , R. J. de Kok , B. Sicardy

The Cassini/Composite InfraRed Spectrometer (CIRS) instrument has been observing the middle atmosphere of Titan over almost half a Saturnian year. We used the CIRS dataset processed through the up-to-date calibration pipeline to…

We have analyzed the complete Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) data archive of Titan. Our objective is to build global surface cartographic products, by combining all the data gathered during the 127 targeted flybys of Titan…

The Voyager 1 and 2 Ultraviolet Spectrometer (UVS) solar and stellar occultation dataset represents one of the primary, pre-Cassini sources of information that we have on the neutral upper atmosphere of Saturn. Despite its importance,…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2015-07-15 Ronald J. Vervack , Julianne I. Moses

High altitude clouds and hazes are integral to understanding exoplanet observations, and are proposed to explain observed featureless transit spectra. However, it is difficult to make inferences from these data because of the need to…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2014-10-09 Tyler D. Robinson , Luca Maltagliati , Mark S. Marley , Jonathan J. Fortney

A multi-decade record of ground-based mid-infrared (7-25 $\mu$m) images of Saturn is used to explore seasonal and non-seasonal variability in thermal emission over more than a Saturnian year (1984-2022). Thermal emission measured by 3-m and…

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…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2025-09-11 Chase A. Cooper , Tyler D. Robinson , Jason W. Barnes , L. C. Mayorga , Lily Robinthal

Far-IR 16-1000 $\mu$m spectra of Saturn's hydrogen-helium continuum measured by Cassini's Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) are inverted to construct a near-continuous record of upper tropospheric (70-700 mbar) temperatures and…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2015-10-14 Leigh N. Fletcher , Patrick G. J. Irwin , Richard K. Achterberg , Glenn S. Orton , F. Michael Flasar

The Cassini spacecraft's last orbits directly sampled Saturn's thermosphere and revealed a much more chemically complex environment than previously believed. Observations from the Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS) aboard Cassini…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2020-09-02 J. Serigano , S. M. Hörst , C. He , T. Gautier , R. V. Yelle , T. T. Koskinen , M. G Trainer

We report on spectroscopic observations of Saturn's stratosphere in July 2011 with the Texas Echelon Cross Echelle Spectrograph (TEXES) mounted on the NASA InfraRed Telescope Facility (IRTF). The observations, targeting several lines of the…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2016-05-26 Thierry Fouchet , Thomas K. Greathouse , Aymeric Spiga , Leigh N. Fletcher , Sandrine Guerlet , Jérémy Leconte , Glenn S. Orton

The Cassini-Huygens space mission revealed that Titan s thick brownish haze is initiated high in the atmosphere at about 1000 km of altitude, before a slow transportation down to the surface. Close to the surface at altitudes below 130 km,…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2018-06-26 Nathalie Carrasco , Sarah Tigrine , Lisseth Gavilan , Laurent Nahon , Murthy S. Gudipati

Transit spectroscopy is a key tool for exoplanet atmospheric characterization. However, transit spectrum observations can be limited by aerosol extinction when gas opacities are weak. The ultraviolet wavelength range contains a variety of…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2020-06-29 Patrick D. Tribbett , Tyler D. Robinson , Tommi T. Koskinen

Saturn's main rings exhibit variations in both their opacity and spectral properties on a broad range of spatial scales, and the correlations between these parameters can provide insights into the processes that shape the composition and…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2013-01-14 M. M. Hedman , P. D. Nicholson , J. N. Cuzzi , R. N. Clark , G. Filacchione , F. Capaccioni , M. Ciarniello

In the last few years Cassini-VIMS, the Visible and Infared Mapping Spectrometer, returned to us a comprehensive view of the Saturn's icy satellites and rings. After having analyzed the satellites' spectral properties (Filacchione et al.…

We describe the prediction, design, execution and calibration of stellar and solar occultation observations of Saturn's rings by the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) instrument on the Cassini spacecraft. Particular attention…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2020-06-24 P. D. Nicholson , T. Ansty , M. M. Hedman , D. Creel , J. Ahlers , R. A. Harbison , R. H. Brown , R. N. Clark , K. H. Baines , B. J. Buratti , C. Sotin , S. V. Badman

Albedo, spectral slopes, and water ice band depths maps for the five midsized saturnian satellites Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, and Rhea have been derived from Cassini-Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) data. The maps are…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2022-01-19 G. Filacchione , M. Ciarniello , E. D'Aversa , F. Capaccioni , R. N. Clark , B. J. Buratti , P. Helfenstein , K. Stephan , C. Plainaki

We report the observation of a cloud system on Titan that remained localized near 40S latitude and 60W longitude for at least 34 hours. Ground-based observations obtained with the SINFONI imaging spectrograph at the Very Large Telescope…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2010-03-16 Máté Ádámkovics , Jason W. Barnes , Markus Hartung , Imke de Pater

A planet's Lyman-{\alpha} (Ly{\alpha}) emission is sensitive to its thermospheric structure. Here, we report joint Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and Cassini cross-calibration observations of the Saturn Ly{\alpha} emission made two weeks…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2023-11-27 Lotfi Ben-Jaffel , Julie Moses , Robert A. West , M-K. aye , Eric T. Bradley , John T. Clarke , Jay B. Holber , Gilda E. Ballester