Between heaven and Earth: the exploration of Titan (original) (raw)

a Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, USA
E-mail: owen@ifa.hawaii.edu

b NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt MD, USA
E-mail: hasso.b.niemann@nasa.gov

c Atmos Ocean & Space Sci., University of Michigan, USA
E-mail: atreya@umich.edu

d Dept. of Geological Sciences, Arizona State University, USA
E-mail: zolotov@asu.edu

Abstract

The atmosphere of Titan represents a bridge between the early solar nebula and atmospheres like ours. The low abundances of primordial noble gases in Titan’s atmosphere relative to N2 suggest that the icy planetesimals that formed the satellite must have originated at temperatures higher than 75–100 K. Under these conditions, N2 would also be very poorly trapped and thus Titan’s nitrogen, like ours, must have arrived as nitrogen compounds, of which ammonia was likely the major component. This temperature constraint also argues against the trapping of methane. Production of this gas on the satellite after formation appears reasonable based on terrestrial examples of serpentinization, disproportionation and reduction of carbon. These processes require rocks, water, suitable catalysts and the variety of primordial carbon compounds that were plausibly trapped in Titan’s ices. Application of this same general scenario to Ganymede, Callisto, KBOs and conditions on the very early Earth seems promising.

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Article information

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1039/B517174A

Article type

Paper

Submitted

05 Dec 2005

Accepted

13 Feb 2006

First published

13 Jul 2006

Download Citation

Faraday Discuss., 2006,133, 387-391

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