Titan's stratospheric seasonal variations up to the end of the Cassini mission

Athena Coustenis (1) , Donald Jennings , Richard K. Achterberg (2) , Panayotis Lavvas (3) , Georgios Bampasidis (4) , Conor Nixon , F. Michael Flasar (5)

1 LESIA - Laboratoire d'études spatiales et d'instrumentation en astrophysique
2 Department of Astronomy [College Park]
3 GSMA - Groupe de spectrométrie moléculaire et atmosphérique
4 NKUA - National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
5 GSFC - NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

We have monitored the seasonal evolution near Titan's poles and equator from 2012 until the last flyby of Titan in 2017. The 2017 data we have acquired and processed here are very important as they also show that the Southern pole is finally showing a significant decrease in abundance. Indeed, in the Titan south pole stratosphere some molecules had preserved their enhancement until end of 2016, before suffering a sudden and large drop in abundance in 2017. This is indicative of a non-symmetrical response to the seasons in Titan's stratosphere that can set constraints on photochemical and GCM models.

Domaines: Planète et Univers [physics]

Athena Coustenis, Donald Jennings, Richard K. Achterberg, Panayotis Lavvas, Georgios Bampasidis, et al.. Titan's stratospheric seasonal variations up to the end of the Cassini mission. EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2019, Sep 2019, Genève, Austria. ⟨hal-02358219⟩