Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
May 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009aas...21440214r&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #214, #402.14; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.665
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
The atmosphere of Titan is composed primarily of nitrogen and methane, with an active organic chemistry producing an organic haze. Aromatic compounds such as benzene (a required precursor for Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons, PAHs, that may be part of aerosol particles) were detected in the ionosphere during a Cassini/Huygens flyby. There is still debate about the characterization of the chemical haze, making it urgent to study the formation and destruction processes of large carbon molecules in Titan's atmosphere.
The modeled chemical pathway of the production of complex organic compounds in Titan's atmosphere strongly enhances the PAH pathway to form, as do laboratory experiments on forming tholins (popular analogs to Titan's haze particles) and the observed level of benzene in Titan's atmosphere. This motivated our project to investigate the role of PAHs, and nitrogen-containing PAHs (NPAHs), in the pathways from gas phase molecules to organic aerosols, in the laboratory. Combined cavity ring down spectroscopy and time-of-flight (TOF) mass spectrometry studies of the products formed in discharge experiments, that allow in situ investigations of the formation of large molecular species and their conversion process into aerosols, will be performed in order to understand and quantify the formation and destruction processes in Titan's atmosphere and constrain photochemical models of organic synthesis on Titan. We describe the preliminary results from a new, custom built TOF experiment and discuss the implications for the analysis and characterization of Titan's haze.
Acknowledgements: This research is supported by NASA SMD (Planetary Atmospheres Program). C. L. R. acknowledges the support of the NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP).
Imanaka Hiroshi
Lebonnois Sébastien
McKay Chris
Ricketts Claire L.
Salama Farid
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