Laboratory Studies on the Production of Organic Haze on Titan and the Early Earth

Details Laboratory Studies on the Production of Organic Haze on Titan and the Early Earth Laboratory Studies on the Production of Organic Haze on Titan and the Early Earth

Dec 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agufm.p13a0144t&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #P13A-0144

Physics

0343 Planetary Atmospheres (5210, 5405, 5704), 5210 Planetary Atmospheres, Clouds, And Hazes (0343), 5225 Early Environment Of Earth, 6281 Titan

Scientific paper

Recent exploration by the Cassini/Huygens mission has stimulated a great deal of interest in Saturn's moon, Titan. One of Titan's most captivating features is the thick organic haze layer surrounding the moon, believed to be formed from photochemistry high in the CH4/N2 atmosphere. Here we report laboratory experiments to demonstrate the chemical and physical properties of haze material formed via photochemistry, similar to such processing on Titan. We have used a deuterium lamp to initiate particle production in these simulated atmospheres from UV photolysis. Using a novel analysis technique, the Aerosol Mass Spectrometer, we have studied the chemical composition, size, and shape of the particles produced as a function of initial trace gas composition. Our results show that the aerosols produced in the laboratory can serve as analogs for the observed haze in Titan's atmosphere. We have used quantitative data obtained for aerosol production from photochemistry to model the mass production rate as a function of CH4 concentration. It has been suggested that a similar haze layer may have formed on the early Earth. Laboratory experiments were also performed under possible conditions for early Earth, and these data suggest a significant optical depth of haze may have dominated the early Earth's atmosphere. The similarities and differences to haze production on Titan are discussed. Using the developed model and comparisons to Titan, we estimate that aerosol production on the early Earth may have been on the order of 1014 g year-1.

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