We report the observation of a cloud system on Titan that remained localized near 40S latitude and 60W longitude for at least 34 hours. Ground-based observations obtained with the SINFONI imaging spectrograph at the Very Large Telescope over 4 consecutive nights recorded the lifetime and altitude of the unresolved cloud system. Concomitant measurements made by Cassini/VIMS over 3 hours resolved changes in the altitude and opacity of individual regions within the system during this time. Clouds are measured from 13 to 37 km altitude with optical depths per pixel ranging from $τ$=0.13 to 7. Short timescale rise times are consistent with previous measurements of the evolution of mid-latitude clouds; however the long timescale localization of the cloud structure is unexplained. We speculate about the role of meso-scale circulation in relation to cloud formation.
Submillimeter emission lines of carbon monoxide (CO) in Titan's atmosphere provide excellent probes of atmospheric temperature due to the molecule's long chemical lifetime and stable, well constrained volume mixing ratio. Here we present the analysis of 4 datasets obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) from 2012 to 2015 that contain strong CO rotational transitions. Utilizing ALMA's high spatial resolution in the 2012, 2014, and 2015 observations, we extract spectra from 3 separate regions on Titan's disk using datasets with beam sizes of ~0.3''. Temperature prof…
The spatial distribution of the tropospheric methane on Titan was measured using near-infrared spectroscopy. Ground-based observations at 1.5$μ{\rm m}$ (H-band) were performed during the same night using instruments with adaptive optics at both the W. M. Keck Observatory and at the Paranal Observatory on 17 July 2014 UT. The integral field observations with SINFONI on the VLT covered the entire H-band at moderate resolving power, $R=λ/Δλ\approx1,500$, while the Keck observations were performed with NIRSPAO near 1.55254$μ{\rm m}$ at higher resolution, $R\approx25,000$. The moderate resolution o…
The Cassini/Composite InfraRed Spectrometer (CIRS) instrument has been observing the middle atmosphere of Titan over almost half a Saturnian year. We used the CIRS dataset processed through the up-to-date calibration pipeline to characterize seasonal changes of temperature and abundance profiles in the middle atmosphere of Titan, from mid-northern winter to early northern summer all around the satellite. We used limb spectra from 590 to 1500 cm$^{-1}$ at 0.5-cm$^{-1}$ spectral resolution, which allows us to probe different altitudes. We averaged the limb spectra recorded during each flyby on a…
We retrieve vertical and meridional variations of methane mole fraction in Titan's lower troposphere by re-analyzing near-infrared ground-based observations from 17 July 2014 UT (Adamkovics et al., 2016). We generate synthetic spectra using atmospheric methane profiles that do not contain supersaturation or discontinuities to fit the observations, and thereby retrieve minimum saturation altitudes and corresponding specific humidities in the boundary layer. We relate these in turn to surface-level relative humidities using independent surface temperature measurements. We also compare our result…
Temporal Variability of Titan's Middle-Atmospheric Zonal Winds from Southern Fall to Late Winter (2016-2023)
Astrochemistry Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center（NASA戈达德太空飞行中心天体化学实验室）；Department of Physics, Catholic University of America（天主教大学物理系）；Aeolis Research（埃俄利斯研究）；Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Yale University（耶鲁大学地球与行星科学系）；School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol（布里斯托尔大学地球科学学院）；Space Telescope Science Institute（太空望远镜科学研究所）；Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology（加州理工学院地质与行星科学部）
Previous investigations have employed more than 100 close observations of Titan by the Cassini orbiter to elucidate connections between the production and distribution of Titan's vast, organic-rich chemical inventory and its atmospheric dynamics. However, as Titan transitions into northern summer, the lack of incoming data from the Cassini orbiter presents a potential barrier to the continued study of seasonal changes in Titan's atmosphere. In our previous work (Thelen et al., 2018), we demonstrated that the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is well suited for measurements of…
The Cassini Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) observed thermal emission in the far- and mid-infrared (from 10 cm$^{-1}$ to 1500 cm$^{-1}$), enabling spatiotemporal studies of ethane on Titan across the span of the Cassini mission from 2004 through 2017. Many previous measurements of ethane on Titan have relied on modeling the molecule's mid-infrared $ν_{12}$ band, centered on 822 cm$^{-1}$. Other bands of ethane at shorter and longer wavelengths were seen, but have not been modeled to measure ethane abundance. Spectral line lists of the far-infrared $ν_{4}$ torsional band at 289 cm$^{-1}$…
It has been recently claimed (Zolotova and Ponyavin, Solar Phys., 291, 2869, 2016, ZP16 henceforth) that a mid-latitude optical phenomenon, which took place over the city of Astrakhan in July 1670, according to Russian chronicles, was a strong aurora borealis. If this was true, it would imply a very strong or even severe geomagnetic storm during the quietest part of the Maunder minimum. However, as we argue in this article, this conclusion is erroneous and caused by a misinterpretation of the chronicle record. As a result of a thorough analysis of the chronicle text, we show that the described…
Cassini/UVIS FUV observations of stellar occultations at Titan are well suited for probing its atmospheric composition and structure. However, due to instrument pointing motion, only five out of tens of observations have been analyzed. We present an innovative retrieval method that corrects for the effect of pointing motion by forward modeling the Cassini/UVIS instrument response function with the pointing motion value obtained from the SPICE C-kernel along the spectral dimension. To illustrate the methodology, an occultation observation made during flyby T52 is analyzed, when the Cassini spac…
UV observations with Cassini ISS Narrow Angle Camera of Titan's detached haze is an excellent tool to probe its aerosols content without being affected by the gas or the multiple scattering. Unfortunately, its low extent in altitude requires a high resolution calibration and limits the number of images available in the Cassini dataset. However, we show that it is possible to extract on each profile the local maximum of intensity of this layer and confirm its stability at $500 \pm 8$ km during the 2005-2007 period for all latitudes lower than 45$^\circ$N. Using the fractal aggregate scattering …
Of the C$_{3}$H$_{x}$ hydrocarbons, propane (C${_3}$H$_{8}$) and propyne (methylacetylene, CH$_{3}$C$_{2}$H) were first detected in Titan's atmosphere during the Voyager 1 flyby in 1980. Propene (propylene, C$_{3}$H$_{6}$) was first detected in 2013 with data from the Composite InfraRed Spectrometer (CIRS) instrument on Cassini. We present the first measured abundance profiles of propene on Titan from radiative transfer modeling, and compare our measurements to predictions derived from several photochemical models. Near the equator, propene is observed to have a peak abundance of 10 ppbv at a …
We explore the past evolution of Saturn's moons using direct numerical integrations. We find that the past Tethys-Dione 3:2 orbital resonance predicted in standard models likely did not occur, implying that the system is less evolved than previously thought. On the other hand, the orbital inclinations of Tethys, Dione and Rhea suggest that the system did cross the Dione-Rhea 5:3 resonance, which is closely followed by a Tethys-Dione secular resonance. A clear implication is that either the moons are significantly younger than the planet, or that their tidal evolution must be extremely slow (Q …
Titan harbors a dense, organic-rich atmosphere primarily composed of N$_2$ and CH$_4$, with lesser amounts of hydrocarbons and nitrogen-bearing species. As a result of high sensitivity observations by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Band 6 ($\sim$230-272 GHz), we obtained the first spectroscopic detection of CH$_3$C$_3$N (methylcyanoacetylene or cyanopropyne) in Titan's atmosphere through the observation of seven transitions in the $J = 64\rightarrow63$ and $J = 62\rightarrow61$ rotational bands. The presence of CH$_3$C$_3$N on Titan was suggested by the Cassini Ion …
The Potential Importance of Non-Local, Deep Transport on the Energetics, Momentum, Chemistry, and Aerosol Distributions in the Atmospheres of Earth, Mars and Titan
Winds in Titan's lower and middle atmosphere have been determined by a variety of techniques, including direct measurements from the Huygens Probe over 0-150 km, Doppler shifts of molecular spectral lines in the optical, thermal infrared and mm ranges, probing altogether the ~100-450 km altitude range, and inferences from thermal field over 10 mbar - 10 -3 mbar (i.e. ~100-500 km) and from central flashes in stellar occultation curves. These measurements predominantly indicated strong prograde winds, reaching maximum speeds of ~150-200 m/s in the upper stratosphere, with important latitudinal a…
The Venusian atmosphere is in a state of superrotation where prevailing westward winds move much faster than the planet's rotation. Venus is covered with thick clouds that extend from about 45 to 70 km altitude, but thermal radiation emitted from the lower atmosphere and the surface on the planet's nightside escapes to space at narrow spectral windows of the near-infrared. The radiation can be used to estimate winds by tracking the silhouettes of clouds in the lower and middle cloud regions below about 57 km in altitude. Estimates of wind speeds have ranged from 50 to 70 m/s at low to mid-lati…
Structure of Jupiter's High-Latitude Storms: Folded Filamentary Regions Revealed by Juno
University of Leicester（莱斯特大学）；California Institute of Technology（加州理工学院）；Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology（加州理工学院喷气推进实验室）；British Astronomical Association（英国天文学会）；Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali, Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica（国家天体物理研究所空间天体物理学和行星科学研究所）；Michigan Technical University（密歇根理工大学）；Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley（加州大学伯克利分校空间科学实验室）；University of Michigan（密歇根大学）；Universitié Côte d’Azur（蔚蓝海岸大学）
We report the detection of a spectral signature observed at 682 cm$^{-1}$ by the Cassini Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) in nadir and limb geometry observations of Titan's southern stratospheric polar region in the middle of southern fall, while stratospheric temperatures are the coldest since the beginning of the Cassini mission. The 682 cm$^{-1}$ signature, which is only observed below an altitude of 300-km, is at least partly attributed to the benzene (C$_6$H$_6$) ice $ν_{4}$ C-H bending mode. While we first observed it in CIRS nadir spectra of the southern polar region in early 2013…
Study on the Venusian Atmospheric Thermal Structure: A Comparative Analysis between VEX/Akatsuki and Venus-GRAM/VCD
Space Physics Laboratory, VSSC（空间物理实验室，VSSC）；Research Centre, University of Kerala（喀拉拉大学研究中心）；Physical Research Laboratory（物理研究实验室）；Rheinisches Institut fur Umweltforschung, Freies Institut fur Planetenforschung（莱茵环境研究所，自由行星研究所）；Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo（东京大学前沿科学研究生院）；Faculty of Science, Kyoto Sangyo University（京都产业大学理学院）
Global maps of Jupiter's atmospheric temperatures, gaseous composition and aerosol opacity are derived from a programme of 5-20 $μ$m mid-infrared spectroscopic observations using the Texas Echelon Cross Echelle Spectrograph (TEXES) on NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF). Image cubes from December 2014 in eight spectral channels, with spectral resolutions of $R\sim2000-12000$ and spatial resolutions of $2-4^\circ$ latitude, are inverted to generate 3D maps of tropospheric and stratospheric temperatures, 2D maps of upper tropospheric aerosols, phosphine and ammonia, and 2D maps of stratosp…
We present the first systematic study of clouds observed during twilight on Mars. We analyze images obtained by the Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC) on Mars Express between 2007 and 2020. Using an automated retrieval algorithm we found 407 cases of clouds observed at twilight, in which the geometry of the observations allows to derive the minimum altitude, revealing that many of these clouds are in the mesosphere (above 40km and up to 90km). The majority of these mesospheric clouds were detected in mid-latitudes at local autumn and winter, a new trend only hinted at by previous studies. In parti…
A novel neural network-based approach to derive a geomagnetic baseline for robust characterization of geomagnetic indices at mid-latitude
Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie（天体物理与行星学研究所）；Conrad Observatory, GeoSphere Austria（奥地利地球圈康拉德天文台）；Université de Strasbourg（斯特拉斯堡大学）
Solar activities may disturb the geomagnetic field and impact the power grid via geomagnetically induced currents. We study active and reactive powers as well as the power factor of Iran's power grid transformers (230 kV and 400 kV) and their correlations with geomagnetic disturbances indices (SYM-H < -30 nT and sizable horizontal geomagnetic field fluctuation) from 19 March 2018 to 20 March 2020. Out of 128,627 cases with a transformer power factor of less than 0.7, we observe that 12,112 samples correlated with SYM-H. Our investigation shows that about 4 percent of two years, the SYM-H has v…
