The bathymetry of a Titan sea

Marco Mastrogiuseppe , Valerio Poggiali , Alexander Hayes (1) , Ralph Lorenz (2) , Jonathan Lunine (3) , Giovanni Picardi , Roberto Seu (4) , Enrico Flamini (5) , Giuseppe Mitri (6) , Claudia Notarnicola , Philippe Paillou (7) , Howard Zebker (8, 9)

1 Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences [Pasadena]
2 APL - Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory [Laurel, MD]
3 LPL - Lunar and Planetary Laboratory [Tucson]
4 Dipartimento INFOCOM [Roma]
5 ASI - Agenzia Spaziale Italiana
6 JPL - Jet Propulsion Laboratory
7 SSE 2014
8 Department of Geophysics [Stanford]
9 Department of Electrical Engineering [Stanford]

construct the depth profile--the bathymetry--of Titan's large sea Ligeia Mare from Cassini RADAR data collected during the 23 May 2013 (T91) nadir-looking altimetry flyby. We find the greatest depth to be about 160 m and a seabed slope that is gentler toward the northern shore, consistent with previously imaged shoreline morphologies. Low radio signal attenuation through the sea demonstrates that the liquid, for which we determine a loss tangent of 3 ± 1*10-5, is remarkably transparent, requiring a nearly pure methane-ethane composition, and further that microwave absorbing hydrocarbons, nitriles, and suspended particles be limited to less than the order of 0.1% of the liquid volume. Presence of nitrogen in the ethane-methane sea, expected based on its solubility and dominance in the atmosphere, is consistent with the low attenuation, but that of substantial dissolved polar species or suspended scatterers is not.

Mots clés: Cassini; Remote sensing; Planetary Sciences; Solar System Objects; Titan; Hydrology

Domaines: Planétologie et astrophysique de la terre [astro-ph.EP]; Planétologie et astrophysique de la terre [astro-ph.EP]

Marco Mastrogiuseppe, Valerio Poggiali, Alexander Hayes, Ralph Lorenz, Jonathan Lunine, et al.. The bathymetry of a Titan sea. Geophysical Research Letters, 2014, 41, pp.1432-1437. ⟨10.1002/2013GL058618⟩. ⟨hal-00975219⟩