Titan – Page 2 – My WordPress Site

Locations of camera components within the Dragonfly spacecraft. -- astro-ph.IM

Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exploration Gear & Tech, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Missions & Hardware, Robotics/Rovers/UAVs, Saturn, Titan, Tricorders & Sensors

Dragonfly Mission: Optomechanical Design Of The DragonCam Microscopic Camera

by Keith CowingJanuary 22, 2026January 22, 2026

Cumulative crater count as a function of crater diameter. Each symbol and line depicts a fit to a different methane-clathrate thickness (see legend). The darkblue dotted line shows Titan’s observed crater count (Hedgepeth et al., 2020). The shaded region indicates craters less than 22 km, which is the lower limit of our results. Note that those craters are affected by Titan’s atmosphere, hence the drop off from the trend line. Panel b shows the inset of Panel a (a black box), so the details near the change in slope can be seen more clearly. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrogeology, Caves, Craters, Mountains & Lava Tubes, Icy Worlds, Impact events, Titan

A Youthful Titan Implied By Improved Impact Simulations

by Keith CowingJanuary 15, 2026January 15, 2026

One set of images taken by Huygens is pictured here showing the view from 2 km altitude. It is in Mercator projection, so the N–S/E–W directions cross at right angles but surface areas appear distorted. Sky above horizon is modfied for formatting.- ESA/Astrobiology.com Original image

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Saturn, Titan, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Absence Of A Subsurface Ocean On Titan Indicated By Cassini Data

by Keith CowingJanuary 7, 2026January 7, 2026

Histograms and uncertainty ellipse (red) for computed Re(k2) and Im(k2) compared with the observed uncertainty ellipse (black) for the interior models of Titan without (a) and with (b) an ocean. The centre and axes of the ellipses are computed from the covariance matrix of the posterior distributions obtained from the interior inversion (1σ level of uncertainty). -- Nature via PubMed

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Missions & Hardware, Titan, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Titan’s Strong Tidal Dissipation Precludes A Subsurface Ocean

by Keith CowingDecember 24, 2025December 24, 2025

This artist’s concept depicts NASA’s Cassini spacecraft performing one of its many close flybys of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. By analyzing the Doppler shift of radio signals traveling to and from Earth, the mission precisely measured Titan’s gravity field. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Missions & Hardware, Saturn, Titan, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Titan May Not Have A Global Ocean

by Keith CowingDecember 17, 2025December 17, 2025

Located about 39 light-years from Earth, the TRAPPIST system resembles a miniature version of our solar system: The star, an ultracool red dwarf, and all its planets would comfortably fit inside the orbit of planet Mercury. Credit NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Titan, TRAPPIST-1

A New Look At TRAPPIST-1e, An Earth-sized, Habitable-zone Exoplanet

by Keith CowingDecember 5, 2025December 5, 2025

Major icy bodies in the Solar System, with the Earth’s moon to scale. The images are shown at the proper relative size. From NASA’s Planetary Photojournal (https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/), Earth’s Moon (PIA00302), Europa (PIA00502), Ganymede (PIA00716), Callisto (PIA03456), Mimas (PIA06258), Enceladus (PIA06254), Tethys (PIA07738), Dione (PIA08256), Rhea (PIA08256), Titan (PIA08256), Hyperion (PIA07740), Iapetus (PIA08384), Phoebe (PIA06064), Miranda (PIA18185), Ariel (PIA01534), Umbriel (PIA00040), Titania (PIA01979), Oberon (PIA00034), Triton (PIA00317), Pluto (PIA19952). -- astro-ph.EP

Ariel, Astrogeology, Callisto, Ceres, Charon, Dione, Enceladus, Europa, Ganymede, Iapetus, Ice Giant, Icy Worlds, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Mars, Mimas, Miranda, Missions & Hardware, Moon, Oberon, Phoebe, Pluto, Polar / Alpine Expeditions, Rhea, Tethys, Titan, Titania, Triton, Umbriel, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Icy Worlds: Moons And Dwarf Planets

by Keith CowingDecember 1, 2025December 1, 2025

Transmission spectra obtained on the Titan 1 and Exoplanet 2 PAMPRE haze analogs (see Table 1) from 0.3 to 2.5 µm. (top) Data and analysis using the Swanepoel method for the Titan 1 sample produced from a gas mixture of 90% N2 and 10% CH4. (bottom) Data and best fit using Cauchy and Tauc-Lorentz dispersion laws for the Exoplanet 2 analog produced from 95% Ar and 5% CH4 in the initial gas mixture. -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Pluto, Titan

Refractive Indices Of Photochemical Haze Analogs For Solar System And Exoplanet Applications: A Cross-laboratory Comparative Study Between The PAMPRE And COSmIC Experimental Set-ups

by Keith CowingNovember 22, 2025November 22, 2025

Heat maps of amino acid percent yields at 0 ºC relative to the starting HCN inventory with 1% and 30% survival factors of initial organic inventory. Columns correspond to varying NH3 concentrations (0–10% of the total water content). Rows list the 21 amino acids evaluated. Cell shading follows a viridis scale from 0% (purple) to 100% (yellow). -- astro-ph.EP

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Caves, Craters, Mountains & Lava Tubes, Cryobiology, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Titan

Prebiotic Chemistry Insights for Dragonfly: Thermodynamics of Amino Acid Synthesis in Selk Crater on Titan

by Keith CowingNovember 14, 2025November 14, 2025

Orbital evolution of satellites, in the relative system, to Constellation Titan -- Satellite Navigation

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Missions & Hardware, Planetary Protection & Biosafety, Saturn, Titan

Flower-like Satellite Constellations To Guide Future Missions Around TitanSatellite Navigation

by Keith CowingNovember 12, 2025November 12, 2025