Description: Publication date: April 2015 Source: Icarus, Volume 250 Author(s): Sandrine Vinatier , Bruno Bézard , Sébastien Lebonnois , Nick A. Teanby , Richard K. Achterberg , Nicolas Gorius , Andrei Mamoutkine , Ever Guandique , Antoine Jolly , Donalds E. Jennings , F. Michael Flasar We analyzed spectra acquired at the limb of Titan in the 2006–2013 period by the Cassini/Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) in order to monitor the seasonal evolution of the thermal, gas composition and aerosol spatial distributions. We are primarily interested here in the seasonal changes after the northern spring equinox and interpret our results in term of global circulation seasonal changes. Data cover the 600–1500 cm −1 spectral range at a resolution of 0.5 or 15.5 cm −1 and probe the 150–500 km vertical range with a vertical resolution of about 30 km. Retrievals of the limb spectra acquired at 15.5 cm −1 resolution allowed us to derive eight global maps of temperature, aerosols and C 2 H 2 , C 2 H 6 and HCN molecular mixing ratios between July 2009 and May 2013. In order to have a better understanding of the global changes taking place after the northern spring equinox, we analyzed 0.5 cm −1 resolution limb spectra to infer the mixing ratio profiles of 10 molecules for some latitudes. These profiles are compared with CIRS observations performed during the northern winter. Our observations are compatible with the coexistence of two circulation cells upwelling at mid-latitudes and downwelling at both poles from at last January 2010 to at least June 2010. One year later, in June 2011, there are indications that the global circulation had reversed compared to the winter situation, with a single pole-to-pole cell upwelling at the north pole and downwelling at the south pole. Our observations show that in December 2011, this new pole-to-pole cell has settled with a downward velocity of 4.4 mm/s at 450 km above the south pole. Therefore, in about two years after the equinox, the global circulation observed during the northern winter has totally reversed, which is in agreement with the predictions of general circulation models. We observe a sudden unexpected temperature decrease above the south pole in February 2012, which is probably related to the strong enhancement of molecular gas in this region, acting as radiative coolers. In July and November 2012, we observe a detached haze layer located around 320–330 km, which is comparable to the altitude of the detached haze layer observed by the Cassini Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) in the UV.

Description: Publication date: April 2015 Source: Icarus, Volume 250 Author(s): Sugata P. Tan , Jeffrey S. Kargel , Donald E. Jennings , Marco Mastrogiuseppe , Hertanto Adidharma , Giles M. Marion Based on a validated model for cryogenic chemical systems, referred to as CRYOCHEM (“Cryogenic Chemistry Model”), surface liquids on Titan are shown to exhibit exotic behavior of density increase with temperature but decrease with pressure, unless the temperature falls below 89.8 K. It is also the case for the atmospheric liquid condensates below an altitude where the liquid density is minimum. The exotic behavior is of compositional origin, which does not have an analog in the atmosphere and liquid water on Earth. As the latitudinal and seasonal variations of surface temperature are known, it is possible to map out the global liquid and vapor density variations as well as the equilibrium phase compositions, which will be useful as inputs for atmospheric general circulation models (GCMs) and investigations of Titan’s methane-equivalent of Earth’s hydrological cycle, local subsurface alkanology (equivalent to hydrology on Earth), lake convection, and clastic and chemical sedimentation in the lakes. Further, the density variations can be used to derive a general idea about global fluid circulation in the upper crust based on averaged conditions on Titan. The surface liquid should tend to flow toward the hottest spot on Titan and a return flow occurs beneath the surface, thus providing analogies with thermohaline circulation in Earth’s oceans. The vapor phase, on the other hand, has ordinary properties that make the global atmospheric circulation similar to the Hadley cell on Earth, but Titan’s cycle reaches the polar regions. The calculated compositions of surface liquids are more methane-rich than other models indicated, thus qualitatively in the right direction to satisfy polar-lake compositions deduced from loss tangents. However, quantitatively there remains a need to find yet more accurate liquid compositions and an optimum equilibrium within constraints of the atmospheric measurements.

Description: Publication date: April 2015 Source: Icarus, Volume 250 Author(s): A.S. Dudaryonok , N.N. Lavrentieva , J.V. Buldyreva Theoretical self-broadening coefficients and associated temperature dependences for methyl cyanide lines in parallel (Δ K = 0) bands are reported for large ranges of rotational quantum numbers (0 ⩽ J ⩽ 70, K ⩽ 20) requested by spectroscopic databases. The calculations are performed by a semi-empirical method, particularly suitable for active molecules with large dipole moments, which needs only a few experimental data for model parameters fitting. Since the common power law for the temperature-dependence exponents is invalid for wide temperature ranges, two separate sets of temperature exponents are provided for Earth and Titan atmospheres applications.

Description: Publication date: April 2015 Source: Icarus, Volume 250 Author(s): Dominika D. Dabrowska , Olga Muñoz , Fernando Moreno , José L. Ramos , Jesús Martínez-Frías , Gerhard Wurm We present measurements of the complete scattering matrix as a function of the scattering angle of five martian dust analogs, namely montmorillonite, two palagonite (JSC-1) samples, basalt, and calcite. The measurements are performed at 488 and 647 nm, covering the scattering angle range from 3° to 177°. The experimental scattering matrices are compared with results of Lorenz–Mie calculations performed for the same size distributions and refractive indices as our analog samples. As expected, we find that scattering matrices of realistic polydispersions of dust particles cannot be replaced by such calculated matrices. In contrast, the measured phase functions for our martian dust analogs may be considered a good approximation for martian dust at the studied wavelengths. Further, because of the sensitivity of polarimetry to particle microphysics, spectro-polarimetric observations from the martian surface appear to be a powerful diagnostic tool to infer the composition of the dust in the martian atmosphere. To facilitate the use of the experimental matrices for multiple-scattering calculations with polarization included, we compute the corresponding synthetic scattering matrices based on the measurements and defined in the full angle range from 0° to 180°.

Description: Publication date: April 2015 Source: Icarus, Volume 250 Author(s): B.J. Travis , G. Schubert Despite its small size, Enceladus emits considerable heat, especially at its south pole, even long after simple thermal models predict it should be frozen. Several sources of energy have been proposed as responsible for this heating, such as tidal dissipative heating (TDH), convection and shearing in the ice shell, and exothermic chemical reactions (e.g., serpentine formation). Crater relaxation simulations suggest that episodic heating events have occurred over long stretches of Enceladus’ history. Thermal history and hydrothermal simulations reported here show that a combination of steady plus episodic TDH heating could maintain at least a polar ocean to the present time. Hydrothermal circulation can play a significant role in mining Enceladus’ internal heat, facilitating the persistence of an ocean even to the present by focusing internal heat to the polar regions.

Description: Publication date: April 2015 Source: Icarus, Volume 250 Author(s): Thiago Statella , Pedro Pina , Erivaldo Antônio da Silva We have developed a method to compute the albedo contrast between dust devil tracks and their surrounding regions on Mars. It is mainly based on Mathematical Morphology operators and uses all the points of the edges of the tracks to compute the values of the albedo contrast. It permits the extraction of more accurate and complete information, when compared to traditional point sampling, not only providing better statistics but also permitting the analysis of local variations along the entirety of the tracks. This measure of contrast, based on relative quantities, is much more adequate to establish comparisons at regional scales and in multi-temporal basis using imagery acquired in rather different environmental and operational conditions. Also, the substantial increase in the details extracted may permit quantifying differential depositions of dust by computing local temporal fading of the tracks with consequences on a better estimation of the thickness of the top most layer of dust and the minimum value needed to create dust devils tracks. The developed tool is tested on 110 HiRISE images depicting regions in the Aeolis, Argyre, Eridania, Noachis and Hellas quadrangles. As a complementary evaluation, we also performed a temporal analysis of the albedo in a region of Russell crater, where high seasonal dust devil activity was already observed before, comprising the years 2007–2012. The mean albedo of the Russell crater is in this case indicative of dust devil tracks presence and, therefore, can be used to quantify dust devil activity.

Description: Publication date: April 2015 Source: Icarus, Volume 250 Author(s): Jean-Yves Bonnet , Eric Quirico , Arnaud Buch , Roland Thissen , Cyril Szopa , Nathalie Carrasco , Guy Cernogora , Nicolas Fray , Hervé Cottin , Lena Le Roy , Gilles Montagnac , Emmanuel Dartois , Rosario Brunetto , Cécile Engrand , Jean Duprat Nitrogen-rich refractory organics are scarce phases recovered as a fraction of stratospheric IDPs and constitute the bulk of the organic matter of some ultracarbonaceous Antarctic micrometeorites. They are likely formed under very specific conditions within a nitrogen-rich environment and may provide valuable clues on the origin of the population of interplanetary dusts accreted by Earth. In this study, we produced relevant analogs of such refractory organics characterized in three ultracarbonaceous Antarctic micrometeorites, starting from the carbonization of an HCN polymer and a tholin. Indeed, carbonization is a process that can increase the polyaromatic character toward a structure similar to that observed in these cosmomaterials. Both these precursors were degraded in an Ar atmosphere at 300, 500, 700 and 1000 °C over ∼1 h and characterized by elemental analysis, micro-FTIR and Raman micro-spectroscopy (at 244 and 514 nm excitation wavelengths). Our results show that the precursors evolve along distinct chemical and structural pathways during carbonization and that the influence of the precursor structure is still very strong at 1000 °C. Interestingly, these different carbonization routes appear in the spectral characteristics of the G and D bands of their Raman spectra. Several of the residues present chemical and structural similarities with three recently studied ultracarbonaceous micrometeorites (Dobrica et al. [2011]. Meteorit. Planet. Sci. 46, 1363; Dartois et al. [2013]. Icarus 224, 243) and with N-rich inclusions in stratospheric IDPs. However, the residues do not simultaneously account for the carbon structure (Raman) and the chemical composition (IR, N/C ratio). This indicates that the precursors and/or heating conditions in our experiments are not fully relevant. Despite this lack of full relevancy, the formation of a polyaromatic structure fairly similar to that of UCAMMs and IDPs suggests that the origin of N-rich refractory organics lies in a thermal process in the proto-solar disk, however radiolysis cannot be excluded.

Description: Publication date: 1 March 2015 Source: Icarus, Volume 248 Author(s): D.C. Rubie , S.A. Jacobson , A. Morbidelli , D.P. O’Brien , E.D. Young , J. de Vries , F. Nimmo , H. Palme , D.J. Frost In order to test accretion simulations as well as planetary differentiation scenarios, we have integrated a multistage core–mantle differentiation model with N-body accretion simulations. Impacts between embryos and planetesimals are considered to result in magma ocean formation and episodes of core formation. The core formation model combines rigorous chemical mass balance with metal–silicate element partitioning data and requires that the bulk compositions of all starting embryos and planetesimals are defined as a function of their heliocentric distances of origin. To do this, we assume that non-volatile elements are present in Solar System (CI) relative abundances in all bodies and that oxygen and H 2 O contents are the main compositional variables. The primary constraint on the combined model is the composition of the Earth’s primitive mantle. In addition, we aim to reproduce the composition of the martian mantle and the mass fractions of the metallic cores of Earth and Mars. The model is refined by least squares minimization with up to five fitting parameters that consist of the metal–silicate equilibration pressure and 1–4 parameters that define the starting compositions of primitive bodies. This integrated model has been applied to six Grand Tack N-body accretion simulations. Investigations of a broad parameter space indicate that: (1) accretion of Earth was heterogeneous, (2) metal–silicate equilibration pressures increase as accretion progresses and are, on average, 60–70% of core–mantle boundary pressures at the time of each impact, and (3) a large fraction (70–100%) of the metal of impactor cores equilibrates with a small fraction of the silicate mantles of proto-planets during each core formation event. Results are highly sensitive to the compositional model for the primitive starting bodies and several accretion/core-formation models can thus be excluded. Acceptable fits to the Earth’s mantle composition are obtained only when bodies that originated close to the Sun, at 〈0.9–1.2 AU, are highly reduced and those from beyond this distance are increasingly oxidized. Reasonable concentrations of H 2 O in Earth’s mantle are obtained when bodies originating from beyond 6–7 AU contain 20 wt% water ice (icy bodies that originated between the snow line and this distance did not contribute to Earth’s accretion because they were swept up by Jupiter and Saturn). In the six models examined, water is added to the Earth mainly after 60–80% of its final mass has accreted. The compositional evolution of the mantles of Venus and Mars are also constrained by the model. The FeO content of the martian mantle depends critically on the heliocentric distance at which the Mars-forming embryo originated. Finally, the Earth’s core is predicted to contain 8–9 wt% silicon, 2–4 wt% oxygen and 10–60 ppm hydrogen, whereas the martian core is predicted to contain low concentrations (〈1 wt%) of Si and O.

Description: Publication date: 1 March 2015 Source: Icarus, Volume 248 Author(s): M.M. Hedman , J.A. Burns , M.R. Showalter Previous investigations of Saturn’s outer D ring (73,200–74,000 km from Saturn’s center) identified periodic brightness variations whose radial wavenumber increased linearly over time. This pattern was attributed to a vertical corrugation, and its temporal variability implied that some event – possibly an impact with interplanetary debris – caused the ring to become tilted out the planet’s equatorial plane in 1983. This work examines these patterns in greater detail using a more extensive set of Cassini images in order to obtain additional insights into the 1983 event. These additional data reveal that the D ring is not only corrugated, but also contains a time-variable periodic modulation in its optical depth that probably represents organized eccentric motions of the D-ring’s particles. This second pattern suggests that whatever event tilted the rings also disturbed the radial or azimuthal velocities of the ring particles. Furthermore, the relative amplitudes of the two patterns indicate that the vertical motions induced by the 1983 event were 2.3 ± 0.5 times larger than the corresponding in-plane motions. If these structures were indeed produced by an impact, material would need to strike the ring at a steep angle (>60° from the ring plane) to produce such motions. Meanwhile, the corrugation wavelengths in the D ring are about 0.7% shorter than one would predict based on extrapolations from similar structures in the nearby C ring. This could indicate that the D-ring was tilted/disturbed about 60 days before the C ring. Such a timing difference could be explained if the material that struck the rings was derived from debris released when some object broke up near Saturn some months earlier. To reproduce the observed time difference, this debris would need to have a substantial initial velocity dispersion and then have its orbital properties perturbed by some phenomenon like solar tides prior to its collision with the rings.

Description: Publication date: 1 March 2015 Source: Icarus, Volume 248 Author(s): Jing He , Arnaud Buch , Nathalie Carrasco , Cyril Szopa Pyrolysis coupled with mass spectry is among the instrumentation the most implemented in planetary exploration probes to analyze the chemical composition of extraterrestrial solid samples. It is used to analyze the volatile species which can be thermally extracted from the samples, including the organic fraction which is of primary interest for astrobiological purposes. However the thermal degradation of these organic materials, which can be very complex in nature or very different from organics commonly present on Earth, is badly known. This leads to a restriction in the optimization of space instrumentation, and in the interpretation of the measurements. In the present work we propose a complete overview of the thermal degradation processes studied on a model of complex organic material produced in an extraterrestrial environment, i.e. laboratory analogues of Titan’s atmospheric aerosols. The thermal evolution of the studied analogues is monitored by following their mass loss, the emitted heating flux, and the evolution of their chemical composition through infrared spectroscopy and elemental analysis. The gaseous products released from the material are also analyzed by mass spectrometry, allowing to better constrain the mechanisms of chemical evolution of the samples. The complex organic material analyzed is found not to be fully decomposed when heated up to about 800 °C, with the evidence that nitrogen is still deeply incorporated in the remaining graphitic carbon nitride residue. The most appropriate pyrolysis temperature to chemically probe the studied material is found to be about 450 °C because at this temperature are detected the largest gaseous molecules which should be the most representative ones of the material pyrolyzed.