The Tides of Titan
Abstract
Titan has long been thought to host a subsurface water ocean. A liquid water or water-ammonia layer underneath the outer icy shell was invoked to explain the Voyager and Cassini observations of abundant methane (an easily dissociated species) in the atmosphere of the satellite. Given the paucity of surface hydrocarbon reservoirs, the atmospheric methane must be supplied by the interior, and an ocean can both provide a large storage volume and facilitate the outgassing from the deeper layers of the satellite to the surface. Huygens probe observations of a Schumann-like resonance point to the presence of an electrically conductive layer at a depth of 50-100 km, which has been interpreted to be the top of an ammonia-doped ocean [1]. Cassini gravity observations provide stronger evidence of the existence of such subsurface ocean. By combining precise measurements of the spacecraft range rate during six flybys, suitably distributed along Titan's orbit (three near pericenter, two near apocenter one near quadrature), we have been able to determine the k2 Love number to be k2 = 0.589±0.150 and k2 = 0.637±0.224 in two independent so-lutions (quoted uncertainties are 2-sigma) [2]. Such a large value indicates that Titan is highly deformable over time scales of days, as one would expect if a global ocean were hidden beneath the outer icy shell. The inclusion of time-variable gravity in the solution provided also a more reliable estimate of the static field, including an updated long-wavelength geoid. We discuss the methods adopted in our solutions and some implications of our results for the interior structure of Titan, and outline the expected improvements from the additional gravity flybys before the end of mission in 2017. [1] C. Beghin, C. Sotin, M. Hamelin, Comptes Rendue Geoscience, 342, 425 (2010). [2] L. Iess, R.A. Jacobson, M. Ducci, D.J. Stevenson, J.I. Lunine, J.W. Armstrong, S.W. Asmar, P. Racioppa, N.J. Rappaport, P. Tortora, Science, 337, 457 (2012).
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2012
- Bibcode:
- 2012AGUFM.P23F..02I
- Keywords:
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- 1221 GEODESY AND GRAVITY / Lunar and planetary geodesy and gravity;
- 5417 PLANETARY SCIENCES: SOLID SURFACE PLANETS / Gravitational fields