Titan's upper atmosphere revealed by Cassini/UVIS stellar occultations

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Scientific paper

Stellar occultations observed by the Cassini/UVIS instrument probe Titan's mesosphere and lower thermosphere at altitudes between 400-1400 km. This region is believed to be the site of complex photochemistry, and the production and growth of aerosols that form the detached and main haze layers. Despite its importance, the region is poorly characterized by previous measurements. We analyzed several stellar occultations in detail, particularly the stable occultations obtained during flybys T21, T41 and T53. Based on this analysis, we present density profiles for CH4, C2H2, C2H4, C4H2, HCN, HC3N and C6H6, and extinction profiles for aerosols. The data reveals the presence of distinct extinction layers that are associated with large perturbations in the density profiles of the gaseous species and aerosol extinction profiles. These features vary slowly over time but overall they are relatively stable. In particular, we identify a sharp extinction layer between 450-550 km as the detached haze layer and show that the altitude of this layer changes consistently with recent images obtained by Cassini/ISS.

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