Titan

Cassini Composite Infrared Spectrometer Observations of Titan 2004–2017

By Keith Cowing
Press Release
astro-ph.EP
July 30, 2019
Filed under
Cassini Composite Infrared Spectrometer Observations of Titan 2004–2017
Titan
NASA

From 2004 to 2017, the Cassini spacecraft orbited Saturn, completing 127 close flybys of its largest moon, Titan.

Cassini’s Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS), one of 12 instruments carried on board, profiled Titan in the thermal infrared (7-1000 microns) throughout the entire 13-year mission. CIRS observed on both targeted encounters (flybys) and more distant opportunities, collecting 8.4 million spectra from 837 individual Titan observations over 3633 hours. Observations of multiple types were made throughout the mission, building up a vast mosaic picture of Titan’s atmospheric state across spatial and temporal domains.

This paper provides a guide to these observations, describing each type and chronicling its occurrences and global-seasonal coverage. The purpose is to provide a resource for future users of the CIRS data set, as well as those seeking to put existing CIRS publications into the overall context of the mission, and to facilitate future inter-comparison of CIRS results with those of other Cassini instruments, and ground-based observations.

Conor A. Nixon, Todd M. Ansty, Nicholas A. Lombardo, Gordon L. Bjoraker, Richard K. Achterberg, Andrew M. Annex, Malena Rice, Paul N. Romani, Donald E. Jennings, Robert E. Samuelson, Carrie M. Anderson, Athena Coustenis, Bruno Bezard, Sandrine Vinatier, Emmanuel Lellouch, Regis Courtin, Nicholas A. Teanby, Valeria Cottini, F. Michael Flasar
(Submitted on 29 Jul 2019)

Comments: 62 pages, 31 figures, 10 tables. CSV format table data included
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
Cite as: arXiv:1907.12612 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:1907.12612v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
Submission history
From: Conor Nixon
[v1] Mon, 29 Jul 2019 19:36:06 UTC (15,687 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.12612
Astrobiology

Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Station Payload manager/space biologist, Away Teams, Journalist, Lapsed climber, Synaesthete, Na’Vi-Jedi-Freman-Buddhist-mix, ASL, Devon Island and Everest Base Camp veteran, (he/him) 🖖🏻