Titan

Open Questions and Future Directions in Titan Science

By Keith Cowing

Status Report

astro-ph.EP

January 3, 2025

Filed under astro-ph.EP, astrochemistry, astrogeology, astronomy, atmosphere, icy world, Ocean world, Titan

Open Questions and Future Directions in Titan Science — This Cassini Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) global mosaic of Titan’s surface brightness in the near-infrared at 938 nm wavelength shows the distribution of Titan’s wide variety of landforms, from the vast equatorial sand seas to the high-latitude lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbons. — NASA

In this chapter we attempt to distill the very large number of possible future inquiries of Titan into a relatively concise list of twenty high level questions – each of which of would necessarily entail a multitude of more specific investigations and studies.

While this list does not encompass all possible open questions, and is divided into topics according to our preference and not in any way uniquely, we believe that it does however span a wide range of the most intriguing topics about Titan, and may form some sort of guide especially for those embarking into Titan studies for the first time.

At the end of this chapter we return to explore how these four techniques may be used to answer the large, high-level open questions in Titan science.

Conor A. Nixon, Natalie Carrasco, Christophe Sotin

Comments: 75 pages, 5 figures, 1 table
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); High Energy Physics – Phenomenology (hep-ph)
Cite as: arXiv:2501.00971 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2501.00971v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2501.00971
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Journal reference: Chapter 15 of book: “Titan after Cassini-Huygens”, Editors: Rosaly M.C. Lopes, Charles Elachi, Ingo Mueller-Wodarg, Anezina Solomonidou. Paperback ISBN: 9780323991612 Elsevier, 2025
Related DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-99161-2.00012-7
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Submission history
From: Conor Nixon
[v1] Wed, 1 Jan 2025 22:34:41 UTC (2,985 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.00971
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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