Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Oct 2007
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007dps....39.5601a&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #39, #56.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.528
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
In the three years since Cassini orbit insertion, the Cassini Composite Infrared Spectrometer has performed over two dozen mapping observations of Titan, each of which provides a map of temperatures between about 0.2 mbar and 5 mbar, in the middle stratosphere, over the observable hemisphere. These temperature maps reveal persistent, large-scale, longitudinal temperature structure in northern mid-latitudes. A periodogram analysis shows that the observed longitudinal temperature variations are can be explained by a zonal wavenumber 1 wave, propagating westward relative to the surface with a frequency consistent with Titan's rotational frequency within the observational uncertainty. The observed wave has a maximum amplitude of 3.5K at 50°N, decaying rapidly to the north and more slowly to the south, with a phase that is nearly constant between 20°N and 65°N, and is weakly observable in the southern hemisphere with an amplitude of 0.5K and roughly 180° phase shift from the northern hemisphere. The meridional structure of the wavenumber 1 is consistent with a zonally symmetric temperature structure with the axis of symmetry offset from Titan's pole by 4.1°
As Titan's winds are linked to the temperatures through cyclostrophic balance, this indicates that the stratospheric winds are zonally symmetric about an axis that is offset from the rotation axis of Titan's solid body.
Achterberg Richard K.
Conrath Barney J.
Flasar Michael F.
Gierasch Peter J.
Nixon Conor A.
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