Formation of Titan's Atmosphere by Hypervelocity Impacts during an Outer Solar System Late Heavy Bombardment

Details Formation of Titan's Atmosphere by Hypervelocity Impacts during an Outer Solar System Late Heavy Bombardment Formation of Titan's Atmosphere by Hypervelocity Impacts during an Outer Solar System Late Heavy Bombardment

Sep 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009dps....41.3608c&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #41, #36.08

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

The isotopic composition of Titan's atmosphere suggests that a significant fraction of the atmosphere may have been delivered by impacts. Although an impact origin for Titan's atmosphere has been studied before (e.g., Zahnle et al., 1992; Griffith & Zahnle 1995), the likelihood of this scenario remains unaddressed in the context of Cassini data, modern impact simulations (e.g., Pierazzo et al., 1997), and recent models of the cometary impact flux onto the outer planet satellites (Levison et al., 2001; Zahnle et al., 2003; Gomes et al., 2005). We will present preliminary calculations assessing the likelihood that Titan's atmosphere was formed from impacts during its early history, including an outer solar system late heavy bombardment (Gomes et al., 2005). In the first 700 Myr after its formation, 4.7x10^23 g of cometary material impacted Titan (Gomes et al., 2005) at an average velocity of 10.5 km/s (Zahnle et al., 2003). Assuming a cometary nitrogen abundance of 0.001 - 0.04 by mass (Zahnle et al., 1992; Griffith and Zahnle, 1995) we find that early cometary impacts deliver 4.7x10^20 - 1.9x10^22 g of nitrogen, about 0.05 to 2.1 times the mass of Titan's present-day atmospheric nitrogen. Using the impact hydrocode CTH (McGlaun et al., 1990), we are modeling vapor production during impacts on Titan to evaluate the balance between impact deposition and erosion. This determines the conditions under which an atmosphere can form during Titan's early evolution. We will show preliminary results of impact modeling to determine both the amount of vapor from the projectile that is retained by the satellite, and the amount of the existing atmosphere that escapes post-impact.

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