کد مقاله کد نشریه سال انتشار مقاله انگلیسی نسخه تمام متن
1782433 1022336 2008 8 صفحه PDF دانلود رایگان
عنوان انگلیسی مقاله ISI
Influence of high abundances of aerosols on the electrical conductivity of the Titan atmosphere
موضوعات مرتبط
مهندسی و علوم پایه علوم زمین و سیارات فیزیک زمین (ژئو فیزیک)
پیش نمایش صفحه اول مقاله
Influence of high abundances of aerosols on the electrical conductivity of the Titan atmosphere
چکیده انگلیسی
Observations of optical depth and scattering by instrumentation onboard the Huygens probe have been used by Tomasko et al. [Tomasko et al., 2005. Rain, winds and haze during Huygens probe's descent to Titan's surface. Nature 438 (8), 765-778] to deduce that the size and abundance of Titan aerosols could be nearly independent of altitude. Here we show that by assuming a constant mass flux with altitude and using the measured optical depth as a constraint, we obtain more realistic size and abundance distributions. In particular, the calculated abundance decreases from 3.5×107 m−3 at 100 km to 8×106 m−3 near the surface while the particle radius varies from 0.25 μm at 150 km to 1.1 μm at the surface. These distributions are consistent with the reported measurements for these quantities. Our results are then employed to compute electron and ion densities and conductivities for various solar UV photoelectron emission thresholds. Our model shows that to get agreement with the published (preliminary) conductivity measurements, photoemission cannot be an important source of electrons and ions. To get agreement with the electron and ion conductivity observations, both an additional population of aerosol embryos above 50 km and a trace amount of an electrophillic molecular species below 50 km are needed.
ناشر
Database: Elsevier - ScienceDirect (ساینس دایرکت)
Journal: Planetary and Space Science - Volume 56, Issue 1, January 2008, Pages 19-26
نویسندگان
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