1 / 15

Cassini-Huygens/VIMS at T0 and Ta: A Taste of Titanic Things to Come

Cassini-Huygens/VIMS at T0 and Ta: A Taste of Titanic Things to Come. K. H. Baines, B. Buratti, P. Drossart, C. Griffith, R. Jaumann, R. M. Nelson, R. H. Brown, R. Clark, C. Sotin, T.Momary and the Cassini/VIMS Team. Salient Results from T0. Titan Surface Winds & Clouds Emissions.

fausta
Download Presentation

Cassini-Huygens/VIMS at T0 and Ta: A Taste of Titanic Things to Come

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Cassini-Huygens/VIMS at T0 and Ta: A Taste of Titanic Things to Come K. H. Baines, B. Buratti, P. Drossart, C. Griffith, R. Jaumann, R. M. Nelson, R. H. Brown, R. Clark, C. Sotin, T.Momary and the Cassini/VIMS Team

  2. Salient Results from T0 • Titan • Surface • Winds & Clouds • Emissions

  3. Titan’s Surface Revealed at T0 • Crystal clear views of Titan’s surface achieved at several wavelengths in the near-infrared, particularly beyond 2.0 microns wavelength. • Variety of surface features observed • Evidence for variety of substances--including organic-based materials • No conclusive VIMS observational evidence yet for surface fluids • Specular reflection not observed on the approx. 2% of surface probed thus far

  4. Image 42.64 • HighRes in IR for some observations • integration time between 160 ms and 640 ms. • Phase angle : 65° Observations at T0

  5. Cloud Distribution/Windsfrom T0 • Single major cloud feature near South Pole • 88 degrees S. Latitude • ~400 km diameter • Tracked for 12 hours • Several smaller, weaker clouds • Perhaps deeper cloudtops

  6. Titan: Multiple South Polar Cloud Features

  7. Cloud Structure Griffith Model Cloudtop: 20 ± 5 km Opacity: ~2 at 2 mm

  8. Titan Emissions • Extensive atmosphere--10 times thicker than Earth’s--Glows for hundreds of kilometers above surface • Dayglow--Methane Fluorescence at 3.3 microns • Extended atmosphere ~ 1/3 of Titan’s radius • Nightglow discovered=> warm stratosphere > 160 K • Generated by primarily by C0, C02 and CH3D

  9. Nightside Emissions Altitude Profile

  10. Titan Nightside 4.7-um Spectra Blue: Average over the Night limb Red: Center of disk on nightside CH3D CO, likely CO2 Emission zone

  11. CLOUD-TRACKED WINDS Latest Results For Major South-Pole Cloud Feature (8/31/04): 0.5 ± 3 m/s, prograde Based on: (1) Motions relative to surface features (2) Motions from C-Kernals Consistent with current theories of Titan’s winds

  12. This Week at Titan…. Titan’s surface and atmosphere will be imaged up to 100 times higherspatial resolution than previously achieved.

  13. VIMS will characterize the surface and atmosphere at the Huygens probe landing site.

More Related