Titan's Gases Glow at Dusk and Dawn Near the Poles

First Posted: Oct 23, 2014 05:48 AM EDT
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Scientists have examined new maps of Saturn's moon, Titan, and have found that traces of gases near its north and south poles shin brightly during dusk and dawn. The findings reveal a bit more about the composition of this other world's atmosphere.

"This is an unexpected and potentially groundbreaking discovery," said Martin Cordiner, lead author of the new study, in a news release. "These kinds of east-to-west variations have never been seen before in Titan's atmospheric gases. Explaining their origin presents us with a fascinating new problem."

The scientists first made the findings with ALMA. At the wavelengths used by these antennas,t he gas-rich areas in Titan's atmosphere glowed bright. In fact, the glowing gas regions are curiously shifted off the poles, to the east or west, so that dawn is breaking over the southern region while dusk is falling over the northern one.

Titan's atmosphere has long been of interest to researchers, since it acts as a chemical factory. It uses energy from the sun and Saturn's magnetic field in order to produce a wide range of organic, or carbon-based molecules. By studying this chemistry, scientists may learn a bit more about Earth's own early atmosphere, which may have shared chemical characteristics with the present-day Titan.

What was most interesting was that when researchers compared gas concentrations at different levels in the atmosphere, they found at the highest altitudes, the gas pockets appeared to be shifted away from the poles. These off-pole concentrations were unexpected because the fast-moving winds in Titan's middle atmosphere move in an east-west direction, forming zones similar to Jupiter's bans. Within each zone, the gases should be thoroughly mixed.

"It seems incredible that chemical mechanisms could be operating on rapid enough timescales to cause enhanced 'pockets' in the observed molecules," said Conor Nixon, co-author of the new paper. "We would expect the molecules to be quickly mixed around the globe by Titan's winds."

Currently, the scientists plan to conduct further studies to investigate why this phenomenon occurs. This means that there will be further observations using ALMA.

The findings are published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

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