Tidal winds on Titan: measurement goals and mobility opportunities for future missions

Details Tidal winds on Titan: measurement goals and mobility opportunities for future missions Tidal winds on Titan: measurement goals and mobility opportunities for future missions

Nov 2002

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002esasp.518..353t&link_type=abstract

In: Proceedings of the First European Workshop on Exo-Astrobiology, 16 - 19 September 2002, Graz, Austria. Ed.: Huguette Lacoste

Biology

Titan Atmosphere: Winds

Scientific paper

Previous climate models of Titan indicated that the wind in Titan's troposphere would be dominated by rather uniform westerlies and weak Hadley circulation. Recent study shows that Saturn's tide gives rise to much stronger near-surface winds in north-south direction with a periodical change of wind direction every few days. The Huygens probe may detect the presence of tidal wind, but will not be able to measure its spatial and temporal variation. These winds will affect the precipitation of condensed hydrocarbons and nitriles by meridional transport, so the composition and global distribution of surface deposits of condensed material may be different from those predicted by simple 1-dimensional photochemistry-condensation models. The spatial heterogeneity of surface deposits means that future missions will need to sample different locations to fully characterise Titan's organic inventory, suggesting a mobile (aerial) platform. Such a platform (perhaps a zeppelin) will also be able to make detailed in-situ meteorology measurements, and can exploit the predictable tidal winds to cover large distances without extreme propulsive cost.

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