相关论文: Titan brighter at twilight than in daylight

As they keep cooling and contracting, Solar System giant planets radiate more energy than they receive from the Sun. Applying the first and second principles of thermodynamics, one can determine their cooling rate, luminosity, and…

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…

Cassini's observations of Titan's atmosphere are exemplary benchmarks for exoplanet atmospheric studies owing to (1) their precision and (2) our independent knowledge of Titan. Leveraging these observations, we perform retrievals (i.e.,…

Planets larger than Earth and smaller than Neptune are some of the most numerous in the galaxy, but observational efforts to understand this population have proved challenging because optically thick clouds or hazes at high altitudes…

We used 0.85 - 5.1 micron 2006 observations by Cassini's Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) to constrain the unusual vertical structure and compositions of cloud layers in Saturn's south polar region, the site of a powerful…

The direction angle of twilight sky background polarization in the celestial sphere points far from solar vertical is found to depend on the ratio of single and multiple scattering contributions. The polarization direction behavior during…

Benzene ice contributes to an emission feature detected by the Cassini Composite InfraRed Spectrometer (CIRS) near 682 cm^{-1} in Titan's late southern fall polar stratosphere. It is as well one of the dominant components of the…

As the only moon in the solar system with a thick atmosphere, Titan is a compelling and enigmatic world containing a complex organic haze. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) molecules are believed to play an essential role in the…

Titan, Saturn's largest moon, has a dense atmosphere, together with lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbons. These liquid bodies, which are in polar regions and up to several hundred kilometres in diameter, generally have smooth surfaces…

We observed a stellar occultation by Titan on 2003 November 14 from La Palma Observatory using ULTRACAM with three Sloan filters: u', g', and i' (358, 487, and 758 nm, respectively). The occultation probed latitudes 2 degrees S and 1…

Saturn's largest satellite, Titan, transited the Crab Nebula on 5 January 2003. We observed this astronomical event with the {\it Chandra} X-ray Observatory. An ``occultation shadow'' has clearly been detected and is found to be larger than…

The rotational lightcurves of the Pluto-Charon system were previously believed to be solely attributed to their surfaces. However, a proposed scenario of haze cooling \citep{2017Natur.551..352Z} suggests that the atmospheric haze of Pluto…

Observations with Cassini's Electron Spectrometer discovered negative ions in Titan's ionosphere, at altitudes between 1400 and 950 km. Within the broad mass distribution extending up to several thousand amu, two distinct peaks were…

Previous investigations have employed more than 100 close observations of Titan by the Cassini orbiter to elucidate connections between the production and distribution of Titan's vast, organic-rich chemical inventory and its atmospheric…

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…

The appearance of debris disks around distant stars depends upon the scattering/phase function (SPF) of the material in the disk. However, characterizing the SPFs of these extrasolar debris disks is challenging because only a limited range…

With the Cassini-Huygens Mission in orbit around Saturn, the large moon Titan, with its reducing atmosphere, rich organic chemistry, and heterogeneous surface, moves into the astrobiological spotlight. Environmental conditions on Titan and…

I report the results of a new set of calculations for the gravitational contraction of the proto-solar cloud to quantify the idea that Titan may be a captured moon of Saturn (Prentice 1981, 1984). It is proposed that Titan initially…

Saturn's Great Storm of 2010 - 2011 produced a planet-encircling wake that slowly transitioned from a region that was mainly dark at 5 microns in February 2011 to a region that was almost entirely bright and remarkably uniform by December…

Thousands of transiting exoplanets have been discovered, but spectral analysis of their atmospheres has so far been dominated by a small number of exoplanets and data spanning relatively narrow wavelength ranges (such as 1.1 to 1.7 {\mu}m).…