Related papers: Titan's Atmosphere and Climate
Submillimeter emission lines of carbon monoxide (CO) in Titan's atmosphere provide excellent probes of atmospheric temperature due to the molecule's long chemical lifetime and stable, well constrained volume mixing ratio. Here we present…
Saturn formed beyond the snow line in the primordial solar nebula that made it possible for it to accrete a large mass. Disk instability and core accretion models have been proposed for Saturn's formation, but core accretion is favored on…
We review the current understanding of the upper atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune, and explore the upcoming opportunities available to study these exciting planets. The ice giants are the least understood planets in the solar system,…
We have studied the pressure and temperature dependence of solubility of nitrogen in methane and ethane using vapor-liquid equilibrium simulations of binary mixtures of nitrogen in methane and ethane for a range of pressures between 1.5 atm…
A large drift in the rotation rate of Titan observed by Cassini provided the first evidence of a subsurface ocean isolating the massive core from the icy crust. Seasonal exchange of angular momentum between the surface and atmosphere…
The surface of Saturn's moon Titan is coated with small molecule organic solids termed cryominerals. Cryominerals play an analogous role to minerals on Earth in Titan's surface geology and geochemistry. To develop a predictive understanding…
Saturn's ionosphere is produced when the otherwise neutral atmosphere is exposed to a flow of energetic charged particles or solar radiation. At low latitudes the latter should result in a weak planet-wide glow in infrared (IR),…
Mars finished forming while the solar nebula was still present, and acquired its primordial atmosphere from this reservoir. The absence of a detectable cometary xenon signature in the present-day Martian atmosphere suggests that the capture…
Saturnian moon Titan presents a compelling testbed for probing prebiotic chemistry beyond early Earth. Impact-generated melt pools provide transient aqueous habitats in an otherwise cryogenic environment. We use Cantera equilibrium models…
We explore the chemistry and observability of nitrogen dominated atmospheres for ultra-short-period super-Earths. We base the assumption, that super-Earths could have nitrogen filled atmospheres, on observations of 55 Cnc e that favour a…
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…
Long-standing unexplained Venus atmosphere observations and chemical anomalies point to unknown chemistry but also leave room for the possibility of life. The unexplained observations include several gases out of thermodynamic equilibrium…
Simulation results are presented from a new general circulation model (GCM) of Titan, the Titan Atmospheric Model (TAM), which couples the Flexible Modeling System (FMS) spectral dynamical core to a suite of external/sub-grid-scale physics.…
Measurements of trace-gases in planetary atmospheres help us explore chemical conditions different to those on Earth. Our nearest neighbor, Venus, has cloud decks that are temperate but hyper-acidic. We report the apparent presence of…
The community commonly assumes that the Venusian atmosphere lacks organic (reduced) carbon. This is reflected in the literature, which now for almost a half a century does not mention organic carbon in connection with the Venus atmosphere.…
The recent candidate detection of ~1 ppb of phosphine in the middle atmosphere of Venus is so unexpected that it requires an exhaustive search for explanations of its origin. Phosphorus-containing species have not been modelled for Venus'…
The origin of the atmosphere of the largest moon of Saturn, Titan, is poorly understood and its chemistry is rather complicated. Ground-based millimeter/sub-millimeter heterodyne spectroscopy resolves line shapes sufficiently to determine…
We study the interaction of atomic and molecular hydrogen with a surface of tholin, a man-made polymer considered to be an analogue of aerosol particles present in Titan's atmosphere, using thermal programmed desorption at low temperatures…
We study the seasonal evolution of Titan's lower stratosphere (around 15~mbar) in order to better understand the atmospheric dynamics and chemistry in this part of the atmosphere. We analysed Cassini/CIRS far-IR observations from 2006 to…
The New Horizons spacecraft will achieve a wide range of measurement objectives at the Pluto system, including color and panchromatic maps, 1.25-2.50 micron spectral images for studying surface compositions, and measurements of Pluto's…