Surface temperature lowering at Bright Ephemeral Feature site on Titan’s north pole ...
We report a temperature decrease in one of the regions on Titan that has been documented as a Bright Ephemeral Feature (BEF). Spectra were recorded by the Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) on Cassini. BEFs are 5µm bright areas that appear, disappear, and shift from flyby to flyby at Titan’s north...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Dataset |
| Language: | unknown |
| Published: |
Root
2023
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.48577/jpl.pt6ous https://dataverse.jpl.nasa.gov/citation?persistentId=doi:10.48577/jpl.PT6OUS |
| Summary: | We report a temperature decrease in one of the regions on Titan that has been documented as a Bright Ephemeral Feature (BEF). Spectra were recorded by the Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) on Cassini. BEFs are 5µm bright areas that appear, disappear, and shift from flyby to flyby at Titan’s north pole observed in Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) data. They are inferred to be broad-specular reflections caused by a smooth surface on Titan or a near surface fog —both of which indicate that the atmosphere interacted with the surface. We used 24 spectra for ‘on the spot’ and 51 spectra for ‘off the spot’ (where spot is the BEF region) to determine the temperature difference during the T121 flyby (July 25 2016). At the 410-560 cm−1 window where surface emissions are perceptible we see a decrease in temperature by 1±0.1 Kelvin. This lowering of temperature might indicate precipitative cooling after a fresh rainfall on Titan’s land/sea surface. ... |
|---|