Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Oct 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010dps....42.5508g&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #42, #55.08; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.1077
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Cassini and Huygens observations of Titan's methane cycle, reveal lakes, rainfall, and storms near the poles, and, in the tropics, a largely cloudless sky with a few low and likely rain-free clouds overlying a landscape dominated by vast dunes. Several general circulation models explain the polar lake concentration through the drying of the tropics by efficient transport of methane to the poles. The only landscape sampled in detail, that by Huygens' Probe at -10 latitude and 192 W longitude, is shaped by fluvial erosion and extensive flooding. These features are difficult to explain as tropical clouds are too few, and too stable to invoke rainstorms, and the humidity too low to allow rain to escape evaporation and reach the surface. Also at odds, there has been no detection of liquids on Titan's tropic surface, with the exception of a surface dampness by the probe. We have analyzed, jointly, observations from Cassini's Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) and Huygens' Descent Imager Spectral Radiometer (DISR) to quantify the tropical atmosphere well enough to investigate the spectral properties of the surface. We find evidence for the existence of lakes and rivers at low latitudes. The lakes are indicated by several well defined patches, roughly 40 km across, where the surface is black at all spectral windows. Nearby are sinuous features that have albedos 1-2% above that of a black surface, suggesting rivers that are sampled along with dry terrain within a single pixel. Our observations raise questions regarding the source of methane to Titan's atmosphere. Tropical surface liquids provide the first sign of the culprit that shaped the Huygens Probe landscape, potentially as a local source of humidity to the atmosphere, needed for rain, or potentially as a source for catastrophic floods.
Doose Lyn
Griffith Caitlin Ann
Penteado Paulo
Turner Jonathan
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