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1.
Nearly all adaptive optics images of Titan taken between December 2001 and November 2004 showed tropospheric clouds located within 30° of the south pole. We report here on a dissipation of Titan's south polar clouds observed in twenty-nine Keck and Gemini images taken between December 2004 and April 2005. The near complete lack of south polar cloud activity during this time, and subsequent resurgence months later at generally higher latitudes, may be the beginning of seasonal change in Titan's weather. The ∼5 month decrease in cloud activity may also have been caused by methane rainout from a large cloud event in October 2004. Understanding the seasonal evolution of Titan's clouds, and of any precipitation associated with them, is essential for interpreting the geological observations of fluid flow features observed over a wide range of Titan latitudes with the Cassini/Huygens spacecraft.  相似文献   

2.
Images of Titan acquired over five nights in October 2004 using the adaptive optics system at the Keck Observatory show dramatic increases in tropospheric cloud activity at the south pole compared with all other images of Titan clouds to date. During this time, Titan's south polar clouds brightened to more than 18 times their typical values. The Cassini Ta flyby of Titan occurred as this storm was rapidly dissipating. We find that the brightness of this cloud outburst is consistent with the dramatic transient brightening of Titan observed in atmospheric windows on two nights in 1995 by Griffith et al. [Griffith, C.A., Owen, T., Miller, G.A., Geballe, T., 1998. Nature 395 (6702) 575-578] if we scale the brightness of the cloud by projecting it onto the equator. While apparently infrequent, the fact that large cloud events have been observed in different seasons of Titan's year indicates that these large storms might be a year-round phenomenon on Titan. We propose possible mechanisms to explain these occasional short-term increases in Titan's cloud activity.  相似文献   

3.
Titan, Saturn's largest moon, has a thick nitrogen/methane atmosphere. The temperature and pressure conditions in Titan's atmosphere are such that the methane vapor should condense near the tropopause to form clouds. Several ground-based measurements have observed sparse cloud-like features in Titan's atmosphere, while the Cassini mission to Saturn has provided large scale images of the clouds. However, Titan's cloud formation conditions remain poorly constrained. Heterogeneous nucleation (from the vapor phase onto a solid or liquid aerosol surface) greatly enhances cloud formation relative to homogeneous nucleation. In order to elucidate the cloud formation mechanism near the tropopause, we have performed laboratory measurements of the adsorption of methane and ethane onto solid organic particles (tholins) representative of Titan's photochemical haze. We find that monolayers of methane adsorb onto tholin particles at saturation ratios less than unity. We also find that solid methane nucleates onto the adsorbed methane at a saturation ratio of S=1.07±0.008. This implies that Titan's methane clouds should form easily. This is consistent with recent measurements of the column of methane ruling out excessive methane supersaturation. In addition, we find ethane adsorbs onto tholin particles in a metastable phase prior to nucleation. However, ethane nucleation onto the adsorbed ethane occurs at a relatively high saturation ratio of S=1.36±0.08. These findings are consistent with the recent report of polar ethane clouds in Titan's lower stratosphere.  相似文献   

4.
The Cassini Titan Radar mapper has observed elevated blocks and ridge-forming block chains on Saturn's moon Titan demonstrating high topography we term “mountains.” Summit flanks measured from the T3 (February 2005) and T8 (October 2005) flybys have a mean maximum slope of 37° and total elevations up to 1930 m as derived from a shape-from-shading model corrected for the probable effects of image resolution. Mountain peak morphologies and surrounding, diffuse blankets give evidence that erosion has acted upon these features, perhaps in the form of fluvial runoff. Possible formation mechanisms for these mountains include crustal compressional tectonism and upthrusting of blocks, extensional tectonism and formation of horst-and-graben, deposition as blocks of impact ejecta, or dissection and erosion of a preexisting layer of material. All above processes may be at work, given the diversity of geology evident across Titan's surface. Comparisons of mountain and blanket volumes and erosion rate estimates for Titan provide a typical mountain age as young as 20-100 million years.  相似文献   

5.
Titan is one of the primary scientific objectives of the NASA–ESA–ASI Cassini–Huygens mission. Scattering by haze particles in Titan's atmosphere and numerous methane absorptions dramatically veil Titan's surface in the visible range, though it can be studied more easily in some narrow infrared windows. The Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) instrument onboard the Cassini spacecraft successfully imaged its surface in the atmospheric windows, taking hyperspectral images in the range 0.4–5.2 μm. On 26 October (TA flyby) and 13 December 2004 (TB flyby), the Cassini–Huygens mission flew over Titan at an altitude lower than 1200 km at closest approach. We report here on the analysis of VIMS images of the Huygens landing site acquired at TA and TB, with a spatial resolution ranging from 16 to14.4 km/pixel. The pure atmospheric backscattering component is corrected by using both an empirical method and a first-order theoretical model. Both approaches provide consistent results. After the removal of scattering, ratio images reveal subtle surface heterogeneities. A particularly contrasted structure appears in ratio images involving the 1.59 and 2.03 μm images north of the Huygens landing site. Although pure water ice cannot be the only component exposed at Titan's surface, this area is consistent with a local enrichment in exposed water ice and seems to be consistent with DISR/Huygens images and spectra interpretations. The images show also a morphological structure that can be interpreted as a 150 km diameter impact crater with a central peak.  相似文献   

6.
The appearance of convective clouds in Titan’s troposphere has been documented from ground-based observation for more than a decade. Cloud tops have been reported between 14 and 25 km. Higher resolution Cassini data have shown smaller portions of the cloud system can reach up to 42 km. We use the Titan Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (TRAMS) to explore environments which allow convective clouds to reach the tropopause. In general, cloud tops remain below 30 km, but for environments where the surface humidity of methane is greater than 50%, a small portion at the center of the cloud rises briefly to higher altitudes; for ?65% humidity, the cloud top reaches nearly to the tropopause (∼40 km). A number of other parameters also have noticeable affects on cloud top such as nucleation critical saturation, haze abundance, and collisional growth of cloud particles.  相似文献   

7.
Our understanding of Titan, Saturn's largest satellite, has recently been consid-erably enhanced, thanks to the Cassini-Huygens mission. Since the Saturn Orbit Injection in July 2004, the probe has been harvesting new insights of the Kronian system. In par-ticular, this mission orchestrated a climax on January 14, 2005 with the descent of the Huygens probe into Titan's thick atmosphere. The orbiter and the lander have provided us with picturesque views of extraterrestrial landscapes, new in composition but reassuringly Earth-like in shape. Thus, Saturn's largest satellite displays chains of mountains, fields of dark and damp dunes, lakes and possibly geologic activity. As on Earth, landscapes on Titan are eroded and modeled by some alien hydrology: dendritic systems, hydrocarbon lakes, and methane clouds imply periods of heavy rainfalls, even though rain was never observed directly. Titan's surface also proved to be geologically active - today or in the recent past - given the small number of impact craters listed to date, as well as a few possible cryovolcanic features. We attempt hereafter a synthesis of the most significant results of the Cassini-Huygens endeavor, with emphasis on the surface.  相似文献   

8.
Erika L. Barth  Owen B. Toon 《Icarus》2006,182(1):230-250
Theoretical arguments point to and recent observations confirm the existence of clouds in Titan's atmosphere, yet we possess very little data on their particle size, composition and formation mechanism. A time-dependent microphysical model is used to study the evolution of ice clouds in Titan's atmosphere. The model simulates nucleation, condensational growth, evaporation, coagulation, and transport of particles in a column of atmosphere. A variety of cloud compositions are studied, including pure ethane clouds, pure methane clouds, and mixed methane-ethane clouds (all with tholin cores). The abundance of methane cloud particles may be limited by the number of ethane coated tholin nuclei rather than the number of tholins with hydrocarbon coatings. However, even the condensation of methane onto these relatively sparse ethane/tholin cloud particles is sufficient to keep the methane close to saturation. Typical methane supersaturations are of order 0.06 on the average. For simulations which take into account recent lab measurements indicating it is relatively easy for methane to nucleate onto tholin particles without an ethane-layer present, the three types of clouds (methane, ethane, and mixed) exist simultaneously. Pure methane clouds are the most abundant cloud type and serve to lower the supersaturation to about 0.04. Cloud production does not require a continuous surface source of methane. However, clouds produced by mean motions are not the visible methane clouds seen in recent Cassini and ground-based observations. Ethane clouds in the troposphere almost instantaneously nucleate methane to form mixed clouds. However, a thin ethane ‘haze’ remains just above the tropopause for some scenarios and the mixed clouds at the tropopause remain ?50% ethane by mass. Also, evaporation of methane from the mixed cloud particles near the surface leaves a thicker layer of ethane cloud particles at ∼10 km. Nevertheless, the precipitation rate of methane to Titan's surface is between 0.001 and 0.5 cm/terrestrial-year, depending on various initial conditions such as critical saturation, size and abundance of cloud condensation nuclei, surface sources and eddy diffusion.  相似文献   

9.
We use data from the VIMS instrument on board the Cassini spacecraft to construct high sensitivity and high spatial-resolution maps of the locations of tropospheric clouds on Titan in the late northern winter season during which the Cassini prime mission took place. These observations show that, in this season, clouds on Titan are strongly hemispherically asymmetric. Mid-latitude clouds, in particular, occur only in the southern hemisphere and have not ever been observed in the north. Such an asymmetry is in general agreement with circulation models where sub-solar surface heating controls the locations of clouds and appears in conflict with models where perennial polar hazes prevent significant summertime polar heating from affecting the circulation. The southern mid-latitude clouds appear to be distributed uniformly in longitude, in contrast to some previous observations. Southern high-latitude clouds exhibit a significant concentration, however, between about 180° and 270°E longitude. A spatially and temporally uniform cloud always appears northward of ∼50°N latitude. This cloud appears unchanged over the course of the observations, consistent with the interpretation that it is caused by continuous ethane condensation as air subsides and radiatively cools through the tropopause. The location of this cloud likely provides a direct tracer of elements of north polar atmospheric circulation, potentially allowing continuous monitoring of circulation changes as Titan passes through equinox into north polar spring and summer. We show that a similar analysis of this dataset by Rodriguez et al. (2009) contains substantial errors and should not be used.  相似文献   

10.
《Planetary and Space Science》2007,55(13):1877-1885
Cassini/Huygens, a flagship mission to explore the rings, atmosphere, magnetic field, and moons that make up the Saturn system, is a joint endeavor of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the European Space Agency, and Agenzia Spaziale Italiana. Comprising two spacecraft—a Saturn orbiter built by NASA and a Titan entry/descent probe built by the European Space Agency—Cassini/Huygens was launched in October 1997. The Huygens probe parachuted to the surface of Titan in January 2005. During the descent, six science instruments provided in situ measurements of Titan's atmosphere, clouds, and winds, and photographed Titan's surface. To correctly interpret and correlate results from the probe science experiments, and to provide a reference set of data for ground-truth calibration of orbiter remote sensing measurements, an accurate reconstruction of the probe entry and descent trajectory and surface landing location is necessary. The Huygens Descent Trajectory Working Group was chartered in 1996 as a subgroup of the Huygens Science Working Team to develop and implement an organizational framework and retrieval methodologies for the probe descent trajectory reconstruction from the entry altitude of 1270 km to the surface using navigation data, and engineering and science data acquired by the instruments on the Huygens Probe. This paper presents an overview of the Descent Trajectory Working Group, including the history, rationale, goals and objectives, organizational framework, rules and procedures, and implementation.  相似文献   

11.
The Cassini Titan Radar Mapper obtained Synthetic Aperture Radar images of Titan's surface during four fly-bys during the mission's first year. These images show that Titan's surface is very complex geologically, showing evidence of major planetary geologic processes, including cryovolcanism. This paper discusses the variety of cryovolcanic features identified from SAR images, their possible origin, and their geologic context. The features which we identify as cryovolcanic in origin include a large (180 km diameter) volcanic construct (dome or shield), several extensive flows, and three calderas which appear to be the source of flows. The composition of the cryomagma on Titan is still unknown, but constraints on rheological properties can be estimated using flow thickness. Rheological properties of one flow were estimated and appear inconsistent with ammonia-water slurries, and possibly more consistent with ammonia-water-methanol slurries. The extent of cryovolcanism on Titan is still not known, as only a small fraction of the surface has been imaged at sufficient resolution. Energetic considerations suggest that cryovolcanism may have been a dominant process in the resurfacing of Titan.  相似文献   

12.
The recent measurements of the vertical distribution and optical properties of haze aerosols as well as of the absorption coefficients for methane at long paths and cold temperatures by the Huygens entry probe of Titan permit the computation of the solar heating rate on Titan with greater certainty than heretofore. We use the haze model derived from the Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer (DISR) instrument on the Huygens probe [Tomasko, M.G., Doose, L., Engel, S., Dafoe, L.E., West, R., Lemmon, M., Karkoschka, E., See, C., 2008a. A model of Titan's aerosols based on measurements made inside the atmosphere. Planet. Space Sci., this issue, doi:10.1016/j.pss.2007.11.019] to evaluate the variation in solar heating rate with altitude and solar zenith angle in Titan's atmosphere. We find the disk-averaged solar energy deposition profile to be in remarkably good agreement with earlier estimates using very different aerosol distributions and optical properties. We also evaluated the radiative cooling rate using measurements of the thermal emission spectrum by the Cassini Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) around the latitude of the Huygens site. The thermal flux was calculated as a function of altitude using temperature, gas, and haze profiles derived from Huygens and Cassini/CIRS data. We find that the cooling rate profile is in good agreement with the solar heating profile averaged over the planet if the haze structure is assumed the same at all latitudes. We also computed the solar energy deposition profile at the 10°S latitude of the probe-landing site averaged over one Titan day. We find that some 80% of the sunlight that strikes the top of the atmosphere at this latitude is absorbed in all, with 60% of the incident solar energy absorbed below 150 km, 40% below 80 km, and 11% at the surface at the time of the Huygens landing near the beginning of summer in the southern hemisphere. We compare the radiative cooling rate with the solar heating rate near the Huygens landing site averaging over all longitudes. At this location, we find that the solar heating rate exceeds the radiative cooling rate by a maximum of 0.5 K/Titan day near 120 km altitude and decreases strongly above and below this altitude. Since there is no evidence that the temperature structure at this latitude is changing, the general circulation must redistribute this heat to higher latitudes.  相似文献   

13.
Cassini observations of the surface of Titan offer unprecedented views of its surface through atmospheric windows in the 1-5 μm region. Images obtained in windows for which the haze opacity is low can be used to derive quantitative photometric parameters such as albedo and albedo distribution, and physical properties such as roughness and particle characteristics. Images from the early Titan flybys, particularly T0, Ta, and T5 have been analyzed to create albedo maps in the 2.01 and 2.73 μm windows. We find the average normal reflectance at these two wavelengths to be 0.15±0.02 and 0.035±0.003, respectively. Titan's surface is bifurcated into two albedo regimes, particularly at 2.01 μm. Analysis of these two regimes to understand the physical character of the surface was accomplished with a macroscopic roughness model. We find that the two types of surface have substantially different roughness, with the low-albedo surface exhibiting mean slope angles of ∼18°, and the high-albedo terrain having a much more substantial roughness with a mean slope angle of ∼34°. A single-scattering phase function approximated by a one-term Henyey-Greenstein equation was also fit to each unit. Titan's surface is back-scattering (g∼0.3-0.4), and does not exhibit substantially different backscattering behavior between the two terrains. Our results suggest that two distinct geophysical domains exist on Titan: a bright region cut by deep drainage channels and a relatively smooth surface. The two terrains are covered by a film or a coating of particles perhaps precipitated from the satellite's haze layer and transported by eolian processes. Our results are preliminary: more accurate values for the surface albedo and physical parameters will be derived as more data is gathered by the Cassini spacecraft and as a more complete radiative transfer model is developed from both Cassini orbiter and Huygens Lander measurements.  相似文献   

14.
The Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer (DISR) of the Huygens probe was in an excellent position to view aspects of rain as it descended through Titan's atmosphere. Rain may play an important part of the methane cycle on Titan, similar to the water cycle on Earth, but rain has only been indirectly inferred in previous studies. DISR detected two dark atmospheric layers at 11 and 21 km altitude, which can be explained by a local increase in aerosol size by about 5-10%. These size variations are far smaller than those in rain clouds, where droplets grow some 1000-fold. No image revealed a rainbow, which implies that the optical depth of raindrops was less than ∼0.0002/km. This upper limit excludes rain and constrains drizzle to extremely small rates of less than 0.0001 mm/h. However, a constant drizzle of that rate over several years would clear the troposphere of aerosols faster than it can be replenished by stratospheric aerosols. Hence, either the average yearly drizzle rate near the equator was even less (<0.1 mm/yr), or the observed aerosols came from somewhere else. The implied dry environment is consistent with ground-based imaging showing a lack of low-latitude clouds during the years before the Huygens descent. Features imaged on Titan's surface after landing, which might be interpreted as raindrop splashes, were not real, except for one case. This feature was a dewdrop falling from the outermost baffle of the DISR instrument. It can be explained by warm, methane-moist air rising along the bottom of the probe and condensing onto the cold baffle.  相似文献   

15.
  相似文献   

16.
The Huygens Probe detected dendritic drainage-like features, methane clouds and a high surface relative humidity (∼50%) on Titan in the vicinity of its landing site [Tomasko, M.G., and 39 colleagues, 2005. Nature 438, 765-778; Niemann, H.B., and 17 colleagues, 2005. Nature 438, 779-784], suggesting sources of methane that replenish this gas against photo- and charged-particle chemical loss on short (10-100) million year timescales [Atreya, S.K., Adams, E.Y., Niemann, H.B., Demick-Montelara, J.E., Owen, T.C., Fulchignoni, M., Ferri, F., Wilson, E.H., 2006. Planet. Space Sci. In press]. On the other hand, Cassini Orbiter remote sensing shows dry and even desert-like landscapes with dunes [Lorenz, R.D., and 39 colleagues, 2006a. Science 312, 724-727], some areas worked by fluvial erosion, but no large-scale bodies of liquid [Elachi, C., and 34 colleagues, 2005. Science 308, 970-974]. Either the atmospheric methane relative humidity is declining in a steady fashion over time, or the sources that maintain the relative humidity are geographically restricted, small, or hidden within the crust itself. In this paper we explore the hypothesis that the present-day methane relative humidity is maintained entirely by lakes that cover a small part of the surface area of Titan. We calculate the required minimum surface area coverage of such lakes, assess the stabilizing influence of ethane, and the implications for moist convection in the atmosphere. We show that, under Titan's surface conditions, methane evaporates rapidly enough that shorelines of any existing lakes could potentially migrate by several hundred m to tens of km per year, rates that could be detected by the Cassini orbiter. We furthermore show that the high relative humidity of methane in Titan's lower atmosphere could be maintained by evaporation from lakes covering only 0.002-0.02 of the whole surface.  相似文献   

17.
In this paper we will summarize some of the most important results of the Cassini mission concerning the satellites of Saturn. The Cassini Mission was launched in October 1997 on a Titan IV-Centaur rocket from Cape Canaveral. Cassini mission was always at risk of cancelation during its development but was saved many times thanks to the great international involvement. The Cassini mission is in fact a NASA-ESA-ASI project. The main effort was made by NASA, which provided the launch facilities, the integration and several instruments; ESA provided the Huygens probe while ASI some of the key elements of the mission such as the high-gain antenna, most of the radio system and important instruments of the Orbiter, such as the Cassini Radar and the visual channel of the VIMS experiment. ASI contributed also to the development of HASI experiment on Huygens probe. The Cassini mission was the first case in which the Italian planetology community was directly involved, developing state of the art hardware for a NASA mission. Given the long duration of the mission, the complexity of the payload onboard the Cassini Orbiter and the amount of data gathered on the satellites of Saturn, it would be impossible to describe all the new discoveries made, therefore we will describe only some selected, paramount examples showing how Cassini’s data confirmed and extended ground-based observations. In particular we will describe the achievements obtained for the satellites Phoebe, Enceladus and Titan. We will also put these examples in the perspective of the overall evolution of the system, stressing out why the selected satellites are representative of the overall evolution of the Saturn system. Cassini is also an example of how powerful could be the coordination between ground-based and space observations. In fact coordinated ground-based observations of Titan were performed at the time of Huygens atmospheric probe mission at Titan on 14 January 2005, connecting the in situ observations by the probe with the general view provided by ground-based measurements. Different telescopes operating at different wavelengths were used, including radio telescopes (up to 17-tracking of the Huygens signal at 2040 MHz), eight large optical observatories studying the atmosphere and surface of Titan, and high-resolution infrared spectroscopy used to observe radiation emitted during the Huygens Probe entry (Witasse et al. J. Geophys. Res. 111:E07S01, 2006).  相似文献   

18.
The surface of Titan has been revealed by Cassini observations in the infrared and radar wavelength ranges as well as locally by the Huygens lander instruments. Sand seas, recently discovered lakes, distinct landscapes and dendritic erosion patterns indicate dynamic surface processes. This study focus on erosional and depositional features that can be used to constrain the amount of liquids involved in the erosional process as well as on the compositional characteristics of depositional areas. Fluvial erosion channels on Titan as identified at the Huygens landing site and in RADAR and Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) observations have been compared to analogous channel widths on Earth yielding average discharges of up to 1600 m3/s for short recurrence intervals that are sufficient to move centimeter-sized sediment and significantly higher discharges for long intervals. With respect to the associated drainage areas, this roughly translates to 1-150 cm/day runoff production rates with 10 years recurrence intervals and by assuming precipitation this implies 0.6-60 mm/h rainfall rates. Thus the observed surface erosion fits with the methane convective storm models as well as with the rates needed to transport sediment. During Cassini's T20 fly-by, the VIMS observed an extremely eroded area at 30° W, 7° S with resolutions of up to 500 m/pixel that extends over thousands of square kilometers. The spectral characteristics of this area change systematically, reflecting continuous compositional and/or particle size variations indicative of transported sediment settling out while flow capacities cease. To account for the estimated runoff production and widespread alluvial deposits of fine-grained material, release of area-dependent large fluid volumes are required. Only frequent storms with heavy rainfall or cryovolcanic induced melting can explain these erosional features.  相似文献   

19.
The first comprehensive calibration and mapping of the thermal microwave emission from Titan's surface is reported based on radiometric data obtained at 2.2-cm wavelength by the passive radiometer included in the Cassini Radar instrument. The data reported were accumulated from 69 separate observational segments in Titan passes from Ta (October 2004) through T30 (May 2007) and include emission from 94% of Titan's surface. They are diverse in the key observing parameters of emission angle, polarization, and spatial resolution, and their reduction into calibrated global mosaic maps involved several steps. Analysis of the polarimetry obtained at low to moderate resolution (50+ km) enabled integration of the radiometry into a single mosaic of the equivalent brightness temperature at normal incidence with a relative precision of about 1 K. The Huygens probe measurement of Titan's surface temperature and radiometry obtained on Titan's dune fields allowed us to infer an absolute calibration estimated to be accurate to a level approaching 1 K. The results provide evidence for a surface that is complex and varied on large scales. The radiometry primarily constrains physical properties of the surface, where we see strong evidence for subsurface (volume) scattering as a dominant mechanism that determines the emissivity, with the possibility of a fluffy or graded-density surface layer in many regions. The results are consistent with, but not necessarily definitive of a surface composition resulting from the slow deposition and processing of organic compounds from the atmosphere.  相似文献   

20.
Since Saturn orbital insertion in July 2004, the Cassini orbiter has been observing Titan throughout most of the northern winter season (October 2002–August 2009) and the beginning of spring, allowing a detailed monitoring of Titan’s cloud coverage at high spatial resolution with close flybys on a monthly basis. This study reports on the analysis of all the near-infrared images of Titan’s clouds acquired by the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) during 67 targeted flybys of Titan between July 2004 and April 2010.The VIMS observations show numerous sporadic clouds at southern high and mid-latitudes, rare clouds in the equatorial region, and reveal a long-lived cloud cap above the north pole, ubiquitous poleward of 60°N. These observations allow us to follow the evolution of the cloud coverage during almost a 6-year period including the equinox, and greatly help to further constrain global circulation models (GCMs). After 4 years of regular outbursts observed by Cassini between 2004 and 2008, southern polar cloud activity started declining, and completely ceased 1 year before spring equinox. The extensive cloud system over the north pole, stable between 2004 and 2008, progressively fractionated and vanished as Titan entered into northern spring. At southern mid-latitudes, clouds were continuously observed throughout the VIMS observing period, even after equinox, in a latitude band between 30°S and 60°S. During the whole period of observation, only a dozen clouds were observed closer to the equator, though they were slightly more frequent as equinox approached.We also investigated the distribution of clouds with longitude. We found that southern polar clouds, before disappearing in mid-2008, were systematically concentrated in the leading hemisphere of Titan, in particular above and to the east of Ontario Lacus, the largest reservoir of hydrocarbons in the area. Clouds are also non-homogeneously distributed with longitude at southern mid-latitudes. The n = 2-mode wave pattern of the distribution, observed since 2003 by Earth-based telescopes and confirmed by our Cassini observations, may be attributed to Saturn’s tides.Although the latitudinal distribution of clouds is now relatively well reproduced and understood by the GCMs, the non-homogeneous longitudinal distributions and the evolution of the cloud coverage with seasons still need investigation. If the observation of a few single clouds at the tropics and at northern mid-latitudes late in winter and at the start of spring cannot be further interpreted for the moment, the obvious shutdown of the cloud activity at Titan’s poles provides clear signs of the onset of the general circulation turnover that is expected to accompany the beginning of Titan’s northern spring. According to our GCM, the persistence of clouds at certain latitudes rather suggests a ‘sudden’ shift in near future of the meteorology into the more illuminated hemisphere. Finally, the observed seasonal change in cloud activity occurred with a significant time lag that is not predicted by our model. This may be due to an overall methane humidity at Titan’s surface higher than previously expected.  相似文献   

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