Titan's Aerosols Interacting with Its Surface: The Potential Role of Ammonia

Details Titan's Aerosols Interacting with Its Surface: The Potential Role of Ammonia Titan's Aerosols Interacting with Its Surface: The Potential Role of Ammonia

Sep 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009dps....41.0704c&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #41, #7.04

Mathematics

Logic

Scientific paper

We performed a laboratory study on the chemical transformation of Titan's aerosols when placed under putative surface conditions of the satellite. Titan's surface was one of the targets of the Cassini-Huygens mission and of several of the Cassini orbiter instruments. The first images revealed an interesting solid surface with features that suggest aeolian, tectonic, fluvial processes and even an impact structure. Since then, more detailed descriptions of dunes, channels, lakes, impact craters and cryovolcanic structures have been documented. The existence of an internal liquid water ocean, containing a few percent ammonia has been proposed. It has also been proposed that ammonia-water mixtures can erupt from the putative subsurface ocean leading to cryovolcanism. The Cassini Titan Radar Mapper obtained SAR images that revealed a highly complex geology occurring at Titan's surface, among which cryovolcanic features play a central role. The composition of the cryomagma is mainly proposed to be a mixture of water ice and ammonia, although ammonia has not been directly detected on Titan.
In order to understand the role that ammonia may have on the chemical transformation of the atmospheric aerosols once they reach the surface, we designed the following laboratory protocol: analogues of Titan's aerosols were synthesized from a N2:CH4 mixture irradiated under a continuous flow regime, inside which a cold plasma was established. The synthesized particles were then partitioned in several samples that were placed in aqueous ammonia solutions at different temperatures for 3 weeks. After a derivatization process performed to the refractory phase, the products were analyzed. We found derived residues related to glycine and alanine as well as urea, that may have important astrobiological implications to Titan's environment.
Therefore, this kind of studies helps to better understand the geological processes of Titan's surface and its relationship with the active organic chemistry occurring in its atmosphere.

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