相关论文: Discovery of lake-effect clouds on Titan

While Saturn's moon Titan appears to support an active methane hydrological cycle, no direct evidence for surface-atmosphere exchange has yet appeared. It is possible that the identified lake-features could be filled with ethane, an…

Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, has many lakes on its surface, formed mainly of liquid methane. Like water lakes on Earth, these methane lakes on Titan likely profoundly affect the local climate. Previous studies (Rafkin and Soto 2020,…

Clouds on Titan result from the condensation of methane and ethane and, as on other planets, are primarily structured by circulation of the atmosphere. At present, cloud activity mainly occurs in the southern (summer) hemisphere, arising…

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…

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.…

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 is one of the more distinctive bodies in our solar system. In addition to being the largest of Saturn's moons, its thick atmosphere gene-rates interest because of its similarities and differences with Earth [1, 2]. Like Earth, Titan's…

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…

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…

Several clues indicate that Titan's atmosphere has been depleted in methane during some period of its history, possibly as recently as 0.5-1 billion years ago. It could also happen in the future. Under these conditions, the atmosphere…

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…

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…

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…

Titan's northern high latitudes host many large hydrocarbon lakes. Like water lakes on Earth, Titan's lakes are constantly subject to evaporation. This process strongly affects the atmospheric methane abundance, the atmospheric temperature,…

Titan is the only moon with a substantial atmosphere, the only other thick N$_{2}$ atmosphere besides Earth's, the site of extraordinarily complex atmospheric chemistry that far surpasses any other solar system atmosphere, and the only…

Saturn's moon Titan exhibits remarkable parallels to the Earth in many geophysical and geological processes not found elsewhere in the solar system at the present day. These include a nitrogen atmosphere with a condensible gas - methane -…

An unexpected feature of Titan's atmosphere is the strong depletion in primordial noble gases revealed by the Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer aboard the Huygens probe during its descent on 2005 January 14. Although several plausible…

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 strength of Titan's methane cycle, as measured by precipitation and evaporation, is key to interpreting fluvial erosion and other indicators of the surface-atmosphere exchange of liquids. But the mechanisms behind the occurrence of…

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…