Methane and its isotopologues on Saturn from Cassini/CIRS observations

Details Methane and its isotopologues on Saturn from Cassini/CIRS observations Methane and its isotopologues on Saturn from Cassini/CIRS observations

Feb 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009icar..199..351f&link_type=abstract

Icarus, Volume 199, Issue 2, p. 351-367.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

18

Scientific paper

High spectral resolution observations from the Cassini Composite Infrared Spectrometer [Flasar, F.M., and 44 colleagues, 2004. Space Sci. Rev. 115, 169 297] are analysed to derive new estimates for the mole fractions of CH4, CH3D and 13CH4 of (4.7±0.2)×10, (3.0±0.2)×10 and (5.1±0.2)×10 respectively. The mole fractions show no hemispherical asymmetries or latitudinal variability. The analysis combines data from the far-IR methane rotational lines and the mid-IR features of methane and its isotopologues, using both the correlated-k retrieval algorithm of Irwin et al. [Irwin, P., and 9 colleagues, 2008. J. Quant. Spectrosc. Radiat. Trans. 109, 1136 1150] and a line-by-line approach to evaluate the reliability of the retrieved quantities. C/H was found to be enhanced by 10.9±0.5 times the solar composition of Grevesse et al. [Grevesse, N., Asplund, M., Sauval, A., 2007. Space Sci. Rev. 130 (1), 105 114], 2.25±0.55 times larger than the enrichment on Jupiter, and supporting the increasing fractional core mass with distance from the Sun predicted by the core accretion model of planetary formation. A comparison of the jovian and saturnian C/N, C/S and C/P ratios suggests different reservoirs of the trapped volatiles in a primordial solar nebula whose composition varies with distance from the Sun. This is supported by our derived D/H ratio in methane of (1.6±0.2)×10, which appears to be smaller than the jovian value of Lellouch et al. [Lellouch, E., Bézard, B., Fouchet, T., Feuchtgruber, H., Encrenaz, T., de Graauw, T., 2001. Astron. Astrophys. 370, 610 622]. Mid-IR emission features provided an estimate of C12/C13=91.8-7.8+8.4, which is consistent with both the terrestrial ratio and jovian ratio, suggesting that carbon was accreted from a shared reservoir for all of the planets.

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