Related papers: Vertical compositional variations of liquid hydroc…
Hundreds of lakes and a few seas of liquid hydrocarbons have been observed by the Cassini spacecraft to cover the polar regions of Titan. A significant fraction of these lakes or seas could possibly be interconnected with subsurface liquid…
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…
Saturn's largest satellite, Titan, has a thick atmosphere dominated by nitrogen and methane. The dense orange-brown smog hiding the satellite's surface is produced by photochemical reactions of methane, nitrogen and their dissociation…
Titan has a climate system with similarities to Earth, including the presence of a thick atmosphere made up of several atmospheric layers. As on Earth, Titan's climate is influenced by several factors: the gaseous species making up the…
Seasonal variation is significant in Titan's atmosphere due to the large change of solar insolation resulting from Titan's 26.7{\deg} axial tilt relative to the plane of Saturn's orbit. Here we present an investigation of hydrocarbon and…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Venus shares many similarities with the Earth, but concomitantly, some of its features are extremely original. This is especially true for its atmosphere, where high pressures and temperatures are found at the ground level. In these…
We present results of an investigation into the formation of nitrogen-bearing molecules in the atmosphere of Titan. We extend a previous model (Li et al. 2015, 2016) to cover the region below the tropopause, so the new model treats the…
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…
Simulations of Titan's atmospheric transmission and surface reflectivity have been developed in order to estimate how Titan's atmosphere and surface properties could affect performances of the Cassini radar experiment. In this paper we…
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…
Cassini discovered a plethora of neutral and ionised molecules in Titan's ionosphere including, surprisingly, anions and negatively charged molecules extending up to 13,800 u/q. In this letter we forward model the Cassini electron…
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 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…
The Cassini Mission has greatly improved our understanding of the dynamics and chemical processes occurring in Titan's atmosphere. It has also provided us with more insight into the formation of the aerosols in the upper atmospheric layers.…
Titan's atmospheric composition and dynamical state have previously been studied over numerous epochs by both ground- and space-based facilities. However, stratospheric measurements remain sparse during Titan's northern summer and fall. The…
The formation and evolution of haze layers in planetary atmospheres play a critical role in shaping their chemical composition, radiative balance, and optical properties. In the outer solar system, the atmospheres of Titan and the giant…