Spatially-Resolved Mapping of Titan's Atmosphere at Several Interesting Wavelengths

Details Spatially-Resolved Mapping of Titan's Atmosphere at Several Interesting Wavelengths Spatially-Resolved Mapping of Titan's Atmosphere at Several Interesting Wavelengths

Jul 1996

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1996hst..prop.6733y&link_type=abstract

HST Proposal ID #6733

Physics

Hst Proposal Id #6733 Solar System

Scientific paper

Titan's atmosphere has been largely inaccessible to study.Methane gas and organic aerosols are the major contributors tothe atmosphere's opacity. The linear ramp filters are well-suited to studying the distributions of hazes, methane gas,and methane clouds at several altitudes, particularly betweenthe surface and 80 km. Methane's absorption coefficientvaries by three orders of magnitude between the 890 nmabsorption band and the 950 nm window. Maps made with narrowfilters in this range will isolate photons that havepenetrated to very specific depths in Titan's atmosphere. Hazeparticles have high single scattering albedos in thiswavelength regime, so that a significant fraction of incidentlight filters back up from the surface, albeit after multiplescattering events. We plan to use the ramp filters to derivemaps at several levels between 0 and 80 km. Voyager radiooccultation experiments indicate that Titan's tropopause isaround 40 km - exactly the region that we will sample mostheavily. This mapping program will help answer the mostfundamental questions regarding Titan's atmosphere. We hope tomodel the photochemical production of haze. Our program hasunprecedented sensitivity to methane clouds, and mayillustrate circulation in the lower atmosphere. Low-altitudegas-phase methane abundances could help determine relativesurface temperatures, the presence of surface volatiles, andperhaps large-scale relief features.

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