Atmospheric organic hazes are widespread across various planetary bodies and have significant effects on both the surface and atmosphere. In this study, we investigate the optical and hygroscopic properties of […]
Titan is unique in the outer solar system in that it is the only moon with a thick atmosphere, and the only body in the solar system outside the Earth […]
Context: Before JWST, telescope observations were not sensitive enough to constrain the nature of clouds in exo-atmospheres. Recent observations, however, have inferred cloud signatures as well as haze-enhanced scattering slopes […]
The puzzling behaviour of Titan’s atmosphere has been revealed by researchers at the University of Bristol for the first time.
![Seasonal distribution of methane clouds in Titan’s troposphere. (a) Latitudinal distribution of clouds observed from Cassini and ground-based observatories [6, 54, 105], overlain on the zonal-mean precipitation distribution averaged over 40 Titan years of a simulation with TAM [57]. Vertical dotted lines indicate the timing of solstices (northern winter solstice and northern summer solstice, NWS and NSS) and equinoxes (northern vernal equinox and northern autumnal equinox, NVE and NAE); thin contours denote isolines of diurnally averaged top-ofatmosphere insolation, and grey shaded regions denote latitudes and times of polar night. (b) A simplified illustration of the expected atmospheric circulation during late northern summer leading to upwelling at northern mid-latitudes, which promotes cloud formation there, as observed by JWST and Keck most recently (see Figs. 4 and 5). -- astro-ph.EP](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/The-Atmosphere-of-Titan-in-Late.png?resize=1200%2C718&ssl=1)
Saturn’s moon Titan undergoes a long annual cycle of 29.45 Earth years. Titan’s northern winter and spring were investigated in detail by the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft (2004-2017), but the northern summer […]
Maunakea, Hawaiʻi – Astronomers using W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaiʻi Island have, for the first time, found evidence for cloud convection in the northern hemisphere of Titan, Saturn’s […]
A science team has combined data from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope and the Keck II telescope to see evidence of cloud convection on Saturn’s moon Titan in the […]
A plausible explanation for the absence of primordial argon, krypton, and xenon in Titan’s current atmosphere is that these gases were sequestered in clathrate hydrates during Titan’s “open-ocean” phase.
NASA’s Dragonfly, the first rotorcraft designed for science exploration on another planet, has passed its Critical Design Review. The mission to Saturn’s icy moon Titan will investigate prebiotic chemical processes […]
For scientists who want to learn about the geological history of a planet, river deltas are a great place to start. Deltas gather sediment from a large area into one […]
