Publication Date:
2000-10-20
Description:
We have discovered frequent variations in the near-infrared spectrum of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, which are indicative of the daily presence of sparse clouds covering less than 1% of the area of the satellite. The thermodynamics of Titan's atmosphere and the clouds' altitudes suggest that convection governs their evolutions. Their short lives point to the presence of rain. We propose that Titan's atmosphere resembles Earth's, with clouds, rain, and an active weather cycle, driven by latent heat release from the primary condensible species.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Griffith, C A -- Hall, J L -- Geballe, T R -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2000 Oct 20;290(5491):509-13.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ 86011-6010, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11039930" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Atmosphere
;
*Extraterrestrial Environment
;
Methane
;
Rain
;
*Saturn
;
Spectrum Analysis
;
Sunlight
;
Temperature
;
Thermodynamics
;
Water
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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