NASA scientists have created a new recipe that captures key flavors of the brownish-orange atmosphere around Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. The recipe is used for lab experiments designed to simulate […]
Titan
Posted inTitan
Equilibrium Composition Between liquid and Clathrate Reservoirs on Titan
Hundreds of lakes and a few seas of liquid hydrocarbons have been observed by the Cassini spacecraft to cover the polar regions of Titan. A significant fraction of these lakes […]
Posted inAstrochemistry, Titan
Titan's Atmosphere as Observed VIMS/Cassini Solar Occultations: CH4, CO and Evidence for C2H6 Absorption
We present an analysis of the VIMS solar occultations dataset, which extracts vertically resolved information on the characteristics of Titan’s atmosphere between 100-700 km with a characteristic vertical resolution of […]
Posted inAstrochemistry, Titan
Detection of Propene in Titan's Stratosphere
The Voyager 1 flyby of Titan in 1980 gave a first glimpse of the chemical complexity of Titan’s atmosphere, detecting many new molecules with the infrared spectrometer (IRIS). These included […]
Posted inOrigin & Evolution of Life, Titan
Insights into Evolution of Life on Earth from Saturn's Moon Titan
Glimpses of the events that nurtured life on Earth more than 3.5 billion years ago are coming from an unlikely venue almost 1 billion miles away, according to the leader […]
Posted inTitan
Chemical Composition of Titan's Dry Lakebed Evaporites
Titan, the main satellite of Saturn, has an active cycle of methane in its troposphere. Among other evidence for a mechanism of evaporation at work on the ground, dry lakebeds […]
Posted inTitan
Antifreeze on Titan Could Affect Its Chances for Life
Antifreeze normally helps prevent freezing, but scientists find a common antifreeze compound that might exist on Saturn’s largest moon Titan can get trapped within ice-like cages. This discovery could influence […]
Posted inAtmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Press Release, Titan
Titan Shows Surprising Seasonal Changes
Detailed observations of Saturn’s moon Titan have now spanned 30 years, covering an entire solar orbit for this distant world.