NASA | GSFC | Cassini | 2017 Oct 18
[img3="This view of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is among the last images the Cassini spacecraft sent to Earth before it plunged into the giant planet’s atmosphere.Researchers with NASA’s Cassini mission found evidence of a toxic hybrid ice in a wispy cloud high above the south pole of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute"]https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/system/news ... hanced.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]
The finding is a new demonstration of the complex chemistry occurring in Titan’s atmosphere—in this case, cloud formation in the giant moon’s stratosphere—and part of a collection of processes that ultimately helps deliver a smorgasbord of organic molecules to Titan’s surface.
Invisible to the human eye, the cloud was detected at infrared wavelengths by the Composite Infrared Spectrometer, or CIRS, on the Cassini spacecraft. Located at an altitude of about 100 to 130 miles (160 to 210 kilometers), the cloud is far above the methane rain clouds of Titan’s troposphere, or lowest region of the atmosphere. The new cloud covers a large area near the south pole, from about 75 to 85 degrees south latitude.
Laboratory experiments were used to find a chemical mixture that matched the cloud’s spectral signature -- the chemical fingerprint measured by the CIRS instrument. The experiments determined that the exotic ice in the cloud is a combination of the simple organic molecule hydrogen cyanide together with the large ring-shaped chemical benzene. The two chemicals appear to have condensed at the same time to form ice particles, rather than one being layered on top of the other. ...
