Other
Scientific paper
Apr 2003
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2003eaeja....12803l&link_type=abstract
EGS - AGU - EUG Joint Assembly, Abstracts from the meeting held in Nice, France, 6 - 11 April 2003, abstract #12803
Other
Scientific paper
We show that anomalies of heavy isotopes in Titan's atmosphere can be explained by using observational data of the radiation and particle environment of solar proxies. These observations indicate a larger solar wind flux and high solar EUV radiation of the early Sun during the first billion years are responsible for a fractionated atmospheric loss. For studying the evolution of the thermal escape of Titan's atmosphere we use a scaling law based on an approximate solution of the heat balance equation in the exosphere. Further, isotope fractionation by non-thermal atmospheric escape processes like dissociative recombination, impact dissociation, atmospheric sputtering and ion pick-up processes. We show that Titan lost an atmospheric mass We discuss also possible chemical reactions of methane and other out-gassing substances due to the high solar EUV fluxes powered thermospheric temperature 4 Gyr ago. This could have lead to molecules of higher mass like ethane and other organic compounds. The efficient production of such molecules was reduced by the decrease of the solar activity resulting in a kind of frozen state. At present only high energy processes like lightning discharges may give similar reactions.
Bauer Siegfried J.
Guinan Edward F.
Hanslmeier Arnold
Lammer Helmut
Povoden G.
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