With the discovery of ever smaller and colder exoplanets, terrestrial worlds with hazy atmospheres must be increasingly considered. Our Solar System’s Titan is a prototypical hazy planet, whose atmosphere may […]
Titan
Posted inPress Release, Titan
Role Of The Global Water Ocean On The Evolution of Titan's Primitive Atmosphere
During the accretion of Titan, impact heating may have been sufficient to allow the global melting of water ice and the release of volatile compounds, mainly constituted of CO2, CH4 […]
Posted inPress Release, Titan
Cloud Of Hydrogen Cyanide and Benzene Found On Titan
Researchers with NASA’s Cassini mission found evidence of a toxic hybrid ice in a wispy cloud high above the south pole of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. The finding is a […]
Posted inPress Release, Titan
Direct Measurement of Interparticle Forces of Titan Aerosol Analogs ("Tholin") Using Atomic Force Microscopy
To understand the origin of the dunes on Titan, it is important to investigate the material properties of Titan’s organic sand particles on Titan. The organic sand may behave distinctively […]
Posted inAstrochemistry, Press Release, Titan
Acrylonitrile Detected in Titan's Atmosphere
NASA scientists have definitively detected the chemical acrylonitrile in the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan, a place that has long intrigued scientists investigating the chemical precursors of life. On Earth, […]
Posted inAstrochemistry, Press Release, Titan
ALMA Confirms Complex Chemistry in Titan's Atmosphere
Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is one of our solar system’s most intriguing and Earth-like bodies. It is nearly as large as Mars and has a hazy atmosphere made up mostly […]
Posted inPress Release, Titan
Cassini Discovery About Possible Prebiotic Chemistry At Titan
The international Cassini-Huygens mission has made a surprising detection of a molecule that is instrumental in the production of complex organics within the hazy atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan. Titan […]
Posted inAstrochemistry, Press Release, Titan
Carbon Chain Anions and the Growth of Complex Organic Molecules in Titan's Ionosphere
Cassini discovered a plethora of neutral and ionised molecules in Titan’s ionosphere including, surprisingly, anions and negatively charged molecules extending up to 13,800 u/q. In this letter we forward model […]
Posted inPress Release, Titan
Laboratory Analogues Simulating Titan's Atmospheric Aerosols
Two sorts of solid organic samples can be produced in laboratory experiments simulating Titan atmospheric reactivity: grains in the volume and thin films on the reactor walls. We expect that […]
Posted inEnceladus, Europa, Press Release, Titan
NASA Tests Robotic Tools For Use on Ice Worlds
Want to go ice fishing on Jupiter’s moon Europa? There’s no promising you’ll catch anything, but a new set of robotic prototypes could help. Since 2015, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory […]