Titan's Methane as a Primordial Chemical Species

Details Titan's Methane as a Primordial Chemical Species Titan's Methane as a Primordial Chemical Species

Sep 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009dps....41.3307g&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #41, #33.07

Biology

Scientific paper

The origin of Titan's methane has been a long-standing mystery. Some believe that the methane was accreted by Titan [Hersant et al., 2004], while others champion the idea that the methane was produced inside Titan [Atreya et al., 2006]. We performed equilibrium isotopic fractionation calculations to determine whether the deuterium/hydrogen (D/H) ratio of Titan's atmospheric methane is consistent with an endogenic origin. We find that methane from serpentinization would have a much higher D/H ratio than that of atmospheric methane, provided that the D/H ratio of Titan's water is similar to that in several comets and Enceladus’ plume [Waite et al., 2009]. The implication is that Titan's methane has a primordial origin, and was once present in icy planetesimals. The apparent absence of hydrothermally produced methane on Titan may also imply that hot hydrothermal systems never existed there, or that Titan's deep interior is quite oxidized. The latter scenario naturally predicts the formation of endogenic molecular nitrogen, providing a new hypothesis for the origin of Titan's atmospheric dinitrogen: the hydrothermal oxidation of isotopically heavy [Charnley and Rodgers, 2002] primordial ammonia. This work was supported in part by the NASA Astrobiology Institute at Arizona State University.

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