Cirrus-Like Clouds Found in Titan's Atmosphere

The Saturnine moon Titan is undoubtedly one of the most interesting bodies in the solar system, and one of those that closest resemble Earth. Scientist now add a new feature to the list of similarities. Recently, they discovered what appeared to be cirrus clouds in the moon's atmosphere.

The finding becomes very interesting especially when considering what the stuff that passes for air on Titan is made of. Rather than featuring nitrogen, oxygen and carbon, like our atmosphere, the one on the celestial object instead contains droplets of various hydrocarbons.

In effect, it has about the same composition as crude oil, but without containing sulfur. Even rain on this Saturnine moon is made of hydrocarbons. Lakes of liquid methane and ethane can be found at both poles, but they dominate at the north pole.

Given that usual instruments cannot penetrate through this thick atmosphere, the only way to image what's below is through radar mapping. From the outside, the space object looks like a dirty orange ball, and appearance it gets from the chemical composition of its air.

Planetary scientists have known for quite some time that Titan's atmosphere features Earth-like phenomena, including lightning, rain and downpours. But a new study showed that it even contained cirrus-like clouds.

These formations are produced when thin and wispy ice particles come together, bound only loosely. The finding was made by experts at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Scientists Carrie Anderson and Robert Samuelson report in the February 1 issue of the esteemed scientific journal Icarus that the cirrus clouds were imaged with the Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) instrument on the NASA Cassini orbiter.

“This is the first time we have been able to get details about these clouds,” explains Samuelson, who is a GSFC emeritus scientist, and also the coauthor of the new research paper.

“Previously, we had a lot of information about the gases in Titan's atmosphere but not much about the [high-altitude] clouds,” the investigator goes on to say.

Speaking about the newly-found clouds, lead author Anderson explains that “they are very tenuous and very easy to miss. The only earlier hints that they existed were faint glimpses that NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft caught as it flew by Titan in 1980.”

Experts have taken a vested interest in this moon because it's the only object in the solar system except Earth to feature an actual atmosphere. Additionally, most of its “air” is made of organic chemicals.

Recent investigations have revealed that the atmosphere surrounding this object meets all the necessary conditions that life needs in order to develop, even if only in its most basic form.