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On the State of Water Ice on Saturn's Moon Titan and Implications to Icy Bodies in the Outer Solar System

Jewitt, David; Kaiser, Ralf I.; Zheng, Weijun

The crystalline state of water ice in the Solar System depends on the temperature history of the ice and the influence of energetic particles to which it has been exposed. We measured the infrared absorption spectra of amorphous and crystalline water ice in the 10-50 K and 10-140 K temperature ranges, respectively, and conducted a systematic exper…

Infrared Spectra of C2H6, C2H4, C2H2, and CO2 Aerosols Potentially Formed in Titan's Atmosphere

Wang, Chia C.; Signorell, Ruth; Zielke, Philipp +2 more

Pure and mixed aerosols of ethane, ethylene, acetylene and carbon dioxide were generated in a collisional cooling cell and characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy between 600 and 4000 cm-1. Pure ethane, pure ethylene, and mixed ethane/ethylene initially form supercooled liquid droplets, which over time crystallize to their stable …

12C/13C Ratio in Ethane on Titan and Implications for Methane's Replenishment

Nixon, Conor A.; Jennings, Donald E.; Bjoraker, Gordon L. +6 more

The 12C/13C abundance ratio in ethane in the atmosphere of Titan has been measured at 822 cm-1 from high spectral resolution ground-based observations. The value, 89(8), coincides with the telluric standard and also agrees with the ratio seen in the outer planets. It is almost identical to the result for ethane on Titan found by the composite infr…