Titan's Bright Spots: Multi-band Spectroscopic Measurement of Surface Diversity and Hazes

Details Titan's Bright Spots: Multi-band Spectroscopic Measurement of Surface Diversity and Hazes Titan's Bright Spots: Multi-band Spectroscopic Measurement of Surface Diversity and Hazes

Sep 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006dps....38.4807a&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #38, #48.07; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.575

Physics

Optics

Scientific paper

Spatially-resolved near-infrared spectra of Titan, which simultaneously cover two methane absorption bands (from 1.45 - 2.45 µm), have been obtained using the SINFONI integral-field spectrometer with adaptive optics at the VLT. We observe the enhancement in 2 µm surface albedo of the `5 µm -bright spot' at 80ºW and 24ºS, and find an analogously bright region at 2 µm near 88ºW and 6ºS. Surface albedos are recovered at 60 mas (375 km) resolution in both 1.5 and 2.0 µm windows using a two-stream, plane-parallel, radiative transfer mode to fit the observed spectra. The surface albedos near the center of the disk range from 8 - 15% at 1.5 µm, and are generally 2% lower at 2.0 µm. Vertical (altitude) profiles of aerosol extinction that are consistent with the Huygens/DISR measurements are used to model these observations and we retrieve latitudinal trends in both stratospheric and tropospheric aerosol extinction. On 28 Feb 2005 UT, the stratospheric aerosol extinction is measured to increase linearly at a rate of 0.65 ± 0.05% per degree latitude from 40ºS to 60ºN. Meanwhile, the tropospheric haze near the south pole is confined to southern latitudes above 40ºS and is enhanced in extinction by a factor of 1.7 relative to the extinction measured at 10ºS, the latitude where the Huygens probe landed.

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