![Conceptual diagrams of the three experimental setups used to produce the tholin samples measured in this study: (a) UNI/PAC, (b) JHU/PHAZER, (c) ARC/COSmIC featuring a diagram of the pulsed discharge nozzle adapted from Sciamma-O’Brien et al. (2014).-- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/A-Cross.png?fit=1200%2C596&ssl=1)
[astro-ph.EP] The organic haze particles on Titan play important roles in atmospheric cloud formation and aerosol-lake interactions.
These processes are strongly influenced by the surface energy of the haze particles, which controls cohesion and wetting behavior. This study presents a comparative analysis of 32 laboratory-produced haze analog samples (“tholins”) synthesized across three laboratories. Using contact angle measurements, we determine the total surface energy and its dispersive and polar components for all samples, systematically evaluating the effects of substrate choice, air exposure, initial N2/CH4 gas mixture, and experimental setup.
We find that tholin samples exhibit minimal substrate dependence, whereas exposure to ambient air substantially modifies the surface chemistry, altering the balance between dispersive and polar components.
Thus, future Titan-relevant surface property measurements may use any substrate but must keep samples pristine. Surface energies vary weakly across methane concentrations, from 1-10% CH4 in N2, indicating that Titan’s hazes formed at different altitudes should exhibit broadly similar cohesiveness.
In contrast, experimental conditions such as gas exposure time and energy source produce the dominant differences in surface energy, driven largely by variations in polar components. Despite these differences, tholin samples exhibit high dispersive components, implying that Titan’s hazes should act as efficient cloud condensation nuclei for hydrocarbon clouds and should generally sink into Titan’s lakes.
Given observed ethane ice clouds, we conclude that cold plasma tholins may be better physical analogs for Titan’s hazes than samples produced with far-ultraviolet irradiation, though intrinsic surface energies of UV tholins remain uncertain due to film thickness limitations.
Eric C. Austin (1), Xinting Yu (1), Chao He (2), Cara Pesciotta (2), Ella Sciamma-O’Brien (3), Joshua A. Sebree (4), Jose Raul Montes-Bojorquez (1), Adis Husić (1), Erik White (5), Christopher R. Bond (6), Sarah Hörst (2), Farid Salama (3), Patricia McGuiggan (6) ((1) Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Texas at San Antonio, (2) Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, (3) Space Science and Astrobiology Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Astrophysics Branch, (4) Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Northern Iowa, (5) Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California Santa Cruz, (6) Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Johns Hopkins University)
Comments: 28 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in Planetary Science Journal
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
Cite as: arXiv:2609.04562 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2609.04562v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2609.04562
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From: Eric Austin
[v1] Thu, 3 Sep 2026 23:34:59 UTC (9,804 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.04562
Astrobiology
