Contribution Of Titan Tholin In Maintaining The Mixing Ratio Of Methane In Titan'S Atmosphere

Details Contribution Of Titan Tholin In Maintaining The Mixing Ratio Of Methane In Titan'S Atmosphere Contribution Of Titan Tholin In Maintaining The Mixing Ratio Of Methane In Titan'S Atmosphere

Sep 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008dps....40.2305k&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #40, #23.05; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 40, p.428

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Bishun N. Khare1, C. McKay1, Y. Sekine2, P. Wilhite3, D. Cruikshank1, T. Ishihara1, D. Nna-Mvondo4
1NASA Ames Research Center, 2University of Tokyo Japan, 3Santa Clara University,4Centro de Astrobiologia, Spain.
We reported the formation of dark reddish organic solids, called tholins by simulating the chemistry in Titan's atmosphere. Its optical constants have been measured from soft X-ray to microwave frequencies (Khare et al. 1984) that matched with the ground-based and spacecraft observations of the geometric albedo of Titan (McKay et al. 1989, Rages and Pollack, 1980) after a correction factor. Imanka et al. (2004) showed that tholins produced in a low-temperature inductively-coupled plasma reactor at low pressures matched Titan's albedo, suggesting that these haze particles may be formed in the upper atmosphere. In fact recent data by Cassini INMS has found benzene in Titan's upper atmosphere (Waite et al. 2005, 2007) suggesting that Tholin formation can take place at extreme altitudes.
Prior to Cassini-Huygens mission, it was largely expected that Titan contained extensive lakes or seas of acetylene and ethane. Such seas were thought necessary to replenish atmospheric methane in Titan's atmosphere (Lunine et al. 1983) since photochemical processes would have removed methane in a short geological timeframe (Yung et al. 1984). Our ongoing research is directed to understand the role of Titan tholin in maintaining the mixing ratio of methane. We have found that while tholin is synthesized, it has the characteristic of absorbing CH4, C2H6, NH3 etc. Also tholin desorbs these gases when left in vacuum after the synthesis. Another finding is that when the tholin is subjected to some kind of energy such as argon discharge, it produces CH4, C2H6, NH3 etc. either as a result of its disintegration or desorption. Efforts are directed to determine quantitatively the gases that come out from the tholin under various conditions.

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