Astrochemistry

Material Properties Of Organic Liquids, Ices, And Hazes On Titan

By Keith Cowing
Press Release
astro-ph.EP
October 4, 2022
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Material Properties Of Organic Liquids, Ices, And Hazes On Titan
Condensation curves for detected gaseous organic species in Titan’s atmosphere. The black line in each panel represents Titan’s mean temperature profile and the shaded grey area represents the range of retrieved temperature profiles using Cassini/CIRS data throughout the Cassini mission (Teanby et al. 2019). Note that the altiude axis on the right represents the alitude for the mean temperature-pressure profile. The solid condensation curves are plotted with the average mixing ratio and the shaded regions are plotted using the observed upper and lower bond mixing ratios listed in Table 1. Solid condensation curves represent solid-gas (s-g) transitions and dash lines represent liquid-gas transitions (l-g). (left) Condensation curves for CH4, C2H6, C2H4, C2H2, C4H2, and C6H6. (center) Condensation curves for C3H6, C3H8, C3H4-a (allene), C3H4-p (propyne), HCN, and HC3N. (right) Condensation curves for CO2, CH3CN, C2H5CN, C2H3CN, and C2N2.
astro-ph.EP

Titan has a diverse range of materials in its atmosphere and on its surface: the simple organics that reside in various phases (gas, liquid, ice) and the solid complex refractory organics that form Titan’s haze layers.

These materials all actively participate in various physical processes on Titan, and many material properties are found to be important in shaping these processes. Future in-situ exploration on Titan would likely encounter a range of materials, and a comprehensive database to archive the material properties of all possible material candidates will be needed. Here we summarize several important material properties of the organic liquids, ices, and the refractory hazes on Titan that are available in the literature and/or that we have computed.

These properties include thermodynamic properties (phase change points, sublimation and vaporization saturation vapor pressure, and latent heat), physical property (density), and surface properties (liquid surface tensions and solid surface energies). We have developed a new database to provide a repository for these data and make them available to the science community. These data can be used as inputs for various theoretical models to interpret current and future remote sensing and in-situ atmospheric and surface measurements on Titan. The material properties of the simple organics may also be applicable for giant planets and icy bodies in the outer solar system, interstellar medium, and protoplanetary disks.

Xinting Yu, Yue Yu, Julia Garver, Jialin Li, Abigale Hawthorn, Ella Sciamma-O’Brien, Xi Zhang, Erika Barth

Comments: 56 pages, 4 figures, 17 tables
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
Cite as: arXiv:2210.01394 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2210.01394v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
Submission history
From: Xinting Yu
[v1] Tue, 4 Oct 2022 05:56:49 UTC (3,223 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.01394
Astrobiology

Keith Cowing

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) 🖖🏻

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