Discovery of Temperate Latitude Clouds on Titan

Details Discovery of Temperate Latitude Clouds on Titan Discovery of Temperate Latitude Clouds on Titan

Jan 2005

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005apj...618l..49r&link_type=abstract

The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 618, Issue 1, pp. L49-L52.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

46

Infrared: Solar System, Planets And Satellites: Individual: Titan

Scientific paper

Until now, all the clouds imaged in Titan's troposphere have been found at far southern latitudes (60°-90° south). The occurrence and location of these clouds is thought to be the result of convection driven by the maximum annual solar heating of Titan's surface, which occurs at summer solstice (2002 October) in this south polar region. We report the first observations of a new recurring type of tropospheric cloud feature, confined narrowly to ~40° south latitude, which cannot be explained by this simple insolation hypothesis. We propose two classes of formation scenario, one linked to surface geography and the other to seasonally evolving circulation, which will be easily distinguished with continued observations over the next few years.
Some of the data presented herein were obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation.
Based on observations obtained at the Gemini Observatory, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under a cooperative agreement with the NSF on behalf of the Gemini partnership: the National Science Foundation (US), the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (UK), the National Research Council (Canada), CONICYT (Chile), the Australian Research Council (Australia), CNPq (Brazil), and CONICET (Argentina).

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