Related papers: Titan's Atmosphere and Climate
The atmospheres of gaseous giant exoplanets orbiting close to their parent stars (hot Jupiters) have been probed for nearly two decades. They allow us to investigate the chemical and physical properties of planetary atmospheres under…
Titan's 'detached' haze, seen in Voyager images in 1980 and 1981 and monitored by the Cassini Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS), during the period 2004-2017, provides a measure of seasonal activity in Titan's mesosphere with observations over…
We present a comprehensive study of the abundance of carbon dioxide in exoplanetary atmospheres in hot, hydrogen-dominated atmospheres. We construct novel analytical models of systems in chemical equilibrium that include carbon monoxide,…
Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain the formation process of satellite systems, and relatively large moons are thought to be born in circumplanetary disks. Making a single-moon system is known to be more difficult than…
The Voyager 1 flyby of Titan in 1980 gave a first glimpse of the chemical complexity of Titan's atmosphere, detecting many new molecules with the infrared spectrometer (IRIS). These included propane (C3H8) and propyne (CH3C2H), while the…
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 Saturn System has been studied in detail by the Cassini-Huygens Mission. A major thrust of those investigations has been to understand how Saturn formed and evolved and to place Saturn in the context of other gas giants and planetary…
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…
Conditions on Saturn's moon Titan suggest dust devils, which are convective, dust-laden plumes, may be active. Although the exact nature of dust on Titan is unclear, previous observations confirm an active aeolian cycle, and dust devils may…
Titan's middle atmosphere is currently experiencing a rapid change of season after northern spring arrived in 2009. A large cloud was observed for the first time above Titan's southern pole in May 2012, at an altitude of 300 km. This…
In an atmosphere, a cloud condensation region is characterized by a strong vertical gradient in the abundance of the related condensing species. On Earth, the ensuing gradient of mean molecular weight has relatively few dynamical…
Earth's water, intrinsic oxidation state, and metal core density are fundamental chemical features of our planet. Studies of exoplanets provide a useful context for elucidating the source of these chemical traits. Planet formation and…
Saturn's moon Titan is a prime destination for investigating prebiotic chemistry beyond Earth, particularly at impact crater sites where transient liquid water may have enabled aqueous reactions between organic molecules. Selk crater…
The search for habitable conditions and signs of life on exoplanets is a major frontier in modern astronomy. Detecting atmospheric signatures of Earth-like exoplanets is challenging due to their small sizes and relatively thin atmospheres.…
Analysis of the Cassini Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (UVIS) stellar and solar occultations at Titan to date include 12 species: N$_{2}$ (nitrogen), CH$_{4}$ (methane), C$_{2}$H$_{2}$ (acetylene), C$_{2}$H$_{4}$ (ethylene),…
We examine the possibility that icy super-Earth mass planets, formed over long time scales (0.1--1~Gyr) at large distances ($\sim$ 200--1000~AU) from their host stars, will develop massive H-rich atmospheres. Within the interior of these…
Despite its importance to questions of lunar origin, the chemical composition of the Moon is not precisely known. In recent years, however, the isotopic composition of lunar samples has been determined to high precision and found to be…
A large fraction of the organic species produced photochemically in the atmosphere of Titan can condense to form ice particles in the stratosphere and in the troposphere. According to various studies, diacetylene (C$_4$H$_2$) condenses…
If Jupiter and the Sun both formed directly from the same well-mixed proto-solar nebula, then their atmospheric compositions should be similar. However, direct sampling of Jupiter's troposphere indicates that it is enriched in elements such…
Context: Saturn's massive gravity is expected to causes a tide in Titan's atmosphere, producing a surface pressure variation through the orbit of Titan and tidal winds in the troposphere. The future Dragonfly mission could analyse this…