Titan haze distribution and optical properties retrieved from recent observations
International audience The VIMS instrument onboard Cassini observed the north polar region of Titan at 113° phase angle, the 28th december 2006. On this spectral image, a vast polar cloud can be seen northward to 62°N, and elsewhere, the haze appears as the dominant source of scattering. Because the...
Published in: | Icarus |
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Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
Other Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
HAL CCSD
2010
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://hal.science/hal-00470538 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2010.03.016 |
Summary: | International audience The VIMS instrument onboard Cassini observed the north polar region of Titan at 113° phase angle, the 28th december 2006. On this spectral image, a vast polar cloud can be seen northward to 62°N, and elsewhere, the haze appears as the dominant source of scattering. Because the surface does not appear in the wavelength range between 0.3 and 4.9 μm, this spectro-image is ideal to study airborn scatterers both in methane bands and windows. In this work, we study this image, along with another image taken at 13° phase angle. This image probe both the atmosphere and the surface from pole to pole. First, we characterize the spatial distribution of the haze layer above 100 km between 80°S and 70°N. We find a north south asymmetry with a haze opacity increasing by a factor 3 from the south pole to the equator, then a constant value up to about 30°N and a decrease of a factor 2 between 30°N and about 60°N. Beyond 60°N, we can see the influence of the north polar cloud, even in the band, but no polar haze accumulation. |
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