Titan's surface and atmosphere from Cassini/VIMS data with updated methane opacity

International audience; We present an analysis of Titan data acquired by the Cassini Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS), making use of recent improvements in methane spectroscopic parameters in the region 1.3-5.2 μm. We first analyzed VIMS spectra covering a 8 × 10-km2 area near the Huygens landing site in order to constrain the single scattering albedo (ω0) of the aerosols over all of the VIMS spectral range. Our aerosol model agrees with that derived from Huygens Probe Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer (DISR) in situ measurements below 1.6 μm. At longer wavelengths, ω0 steadily decreases from 0.92 at 1.6 μm to about 0.70 at 2.5 μm and abruptly drops to about 0.50 near 2.6 μm…

ARES II: Characterising the Hot Jupiters WASP-127 b, WASP-79 b and WASP-62 b with HST

This paper presents the atmospheric characterisation of three large, gaseous planets: WASP-127b, WASP-79b and WASP-62b. We analysed spectroscopic data obtained with the G141 grism (1.088 - 1.68 $\mu$m) of the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) onboard the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) using the Iraclis pipeline and the TauREx3 retrieval code, both of which are publicly available. For WASP-127 b, which is the least dense planet discovered so far and is located in the short-period Neptune desert, our retrieval results found strong water absorption corresponding to an abundance of log(H$_2$O) = -2.71$^{+0.78}_{-1.05}$, and absorption compatible with an iron hydride abundance of log(FeH)=$-5.25^{+0.88}_…

Simulations of Titan Observations in the 1.58 Micron Transparency Window with High-Resolution, Low Temperature CRDS Spectra

Le méthane dans l'atmosphère de Titan. De la spectroscopie fondamentale à la planétologie

Le méthane (CH4) joue sur Tian, le plus gros satellite de Saturne, un rôle similaire à celui de l'eau sur Terre. Il y est de plus à l'origine d'une chimie organique complexe. La spectroscopie étant la technique privilégiée pour mesurer le CH4 dans les atmosphères planétaires, des modèles précis de l'absorption de la lumière par cette molécule doivent être développés. Les résultats récents obtenus dans ce domaine à l'Institut Carnot de Bourgogne, en collaboration étroite avec des planétologues, permettent notamment de contribuer à l'interprétation des résultats de la mission Cassini-Huygens.

ARES. III. Unveiling the Two Faces of KELT-7 b with HST WFC3

We present the analysis of the hot-Jupiter KELT-7b using transmission and emission spectroscopy from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), both taken with the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Our study uncovers a rich transmission spectrum which is consistent with a cloud-free atmosphere and suggests the presence of H2O and H-. In contrast, the extracted emission spectrum does not contain strong absorption features and, although it is not consistent with a simple blackbody, it can be explained by a varying temperature-pressure profile, collision induced absorption (CIA) and H-. KELT-7 b had also been studied with other space-based instruments and we explore the effects of introducing these additiona…

The 2-μm spectroscopy of Huygens probe landing site on Titan with Very Large Telescope/Nasmyth Adaptive Optics System Near-Infrared Imager and Spectrograph

[1] Several ground-based telescopes followed the event of the Huygens probe descent through Titan's atmosphere (14 January 2005). We used the Nasmyth Adaptive Optics System Near-Infrared Imager and Spectrograph (NACO) adaptive optics system at the UT-4 of the Very Large Telescope in Chile to perform both spectroscopic and imaging measurements of Titan. We present here a selected sample of the spectra we acquired on 16 January 2005 in the K band between 2.03 and 2.40 μm. Our spectra include the Huygens landing site and surrounding dark and bright areas. We apply a radiative transfer code using new methane absorption coefficients calculated in the 2-μm region. The analysis of the data yields …

Ariel: Enabling planetary science across light-years

Ariel, the Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey, was adopted as the fourth medium-class mission in ESA's Cosmic Vision programme to be launched in 2029. During its 4-year mission, Ariel will study what exoplanets are made of, how they formed and how they evolve, by surveying a diverse sample of about 1000 extrasolar planets, simultaneously in visible and infrared wavelengths. It is the first mission dedicated to measuring the chemical composition and thermal structures of hundreds of transiting exoplanets, enabling planetary science far beyond the boundaries of the Solar System. The payload consists of an off-axis Cassegrain telescope (primary mirror 1100 mm x 730 mm e…

Corrigendum to "Titan's surface and atmosphere from Cassini/VIMS data with updated methane opacity" [Icarus 226 (2013) 470-486]

0019-1035/$ see front matter 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2013.07.015 DOI of original article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2013.05.033 ⇑ Corresponding author. Address: LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, Section de Meudon, 92195 Meudon Cedex, France. Fax: +33 145072806. E-mail address: bruno.bezard@obspm.fr (B. Bezard). 1 Present address: Foundation ‘‘La main a la pâte’’, Montrouge, France. M. Hirtzig , B. Bezard a,⇑, E. Lellouch , A. Coustenis , C. de Bergh , P. Drossart , A. Campargue , V. Boudon , V. Tyuterev , P. Rannou , T. Cours , S. Kassi , A. Nikitin , D. Mondelain , S. Rodriguez , S. Le Mouelic g

Methane in Titan's atmosphere: from fundamental spectroscopy to planetology

The methane molecule (CH4) is relatively abundant in the Universe and in particular in our Solar System. On Earth, it is the main compound of natural gas and is also the second greenhouse gas of anthropic origin. On Saturn's satellite Titan it plays a role similar to water on Earth and leads to a complex chemistry.

Le méthane dans l’atmosphère de Titan - De la spectroscopie fondamentale à la planétologie

Le methane (CH4) joue sur Tian, le plus gros satellite de Saturne, un role similaire a celui de l'eau sur Terre. Il y est de plus a l'origine d'une chimie organique complexe. La spectroscopie etant la technique privilegiee pour mesurer le CH4 dans les atmospheres planetaires, des modeles precis de l'absorption de la lumiere par cette molecule doivent etre developpes. Les resultats recents obtenus dans ce domaine a l'Institut Carnot de Bourgogne, en collaboration etroite avec des planetologues, permettent notamment de contribuer a l'interpretation des resultats de la mission Cassini-Huygens.

Titan's 3-micron spectral region from ISO high-resolution spectroscopy

Abstract The near-infrared spectrum of Titan, Saturn's largest moon and one of the Cassini/Huygens' space mission primary targets, covers the 0.8 to 5 micron region in which it shows several weak CH 4 absorption regions, and in particular one centered near 2.75 micron. Due to the interference of telluric absorption, only part of this window region (2.9–3.1 μm) has previously been observed from the ground [Noll, K.S., Geballe, T.R., Knacke, R., Pendleton, F., Yvonne, J., 1996. Icarus 124, 625–631; Griffith, C.A., Owen, T., Miller, G.A., Geballe, T., 1998. Nature 395, 575–578; Griffith, C.A., Owen, T., Geballe, T.R., Rayner, J., Rannou, P., 2003. Science 300, 628–630; Geballe, T.R., Kim, S.J.…

Applications of a New Methane Linelist to the Modeling of Titan's Spectrum in the 1.58 Micron Window

International audience

Recent Applications and Future Prospects of Methane Spectroscopy to the Atmosphere of Titan

First Applications of New Methane Linelists to the Modelling of Titan's Spectrum in the 1.58 and 1.28 Micron Windows

ARES I: WASP-76 b, A Tale of Two HST Spectra

We analyse the transmission and emission spectra of the ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-76b, observed with the G141 grism of the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). We reduce and fit the raw data for each observation using the open-source software Iraclis before performing a fully Bayesian retrieval using the publicly available analysis suite TauRex 3. Previous studies of the WFC3 transmission spectra of WASP-76 b found hints of titanium oxide (TiO) and vanadium oxide (VO) or non-grey clouds. Accounting for a fainter stellar companion to WASP-76, we reanalyse this data and show that removing the effects of this background star changes the slope of the spectrum, resulting in these vi…

Application of new methane linelists to Cassini and Earth-based data of Titan

International audience

Applications of a new set of methane line parameters to the modeling of Titan's spectrum in the 1.58 μm window

International audience; In this paper we apply a recently released set of methane line parameters (Wang et al., 2011) to the modeling of Titan spectra in the 1.58 mu m window at both low and high spectral resolution. We first compare the methane absorption based on this new set of methane data to that calculated from the methane absorption coefficients derived in situ from DISR/Huygens (Tomasko et al., 2008a; Karkoschka and Tomasko, 2010) and from the band models of Irwin et al. (2006) and Karkoschka and Tomasko (2010). The Irwin et al. (2006) band model clearly underestimates the absorption in the window at temperature-pressure conditions representative of Titan's troposphere, while the Ka…

Methane and carbon monoxide infrared emissions observed at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope during the collision of comet SL-9 with Jupiter

Observations with the Fourier Transform Spectrometer were conducted in spectral ranges from 1.6 to 4.7 µm from July 17 to 21 (UT) on the hot plumes appearing on the limb as well as hours or days after the impacts. We present here an analysis of the methane emission observed at 3.3 µm some 10 min after the C impact, indicating the presence of a very small (less than 100 km wide) hot region with temperatures in the 750–1500 K range within the 0.1- to 0.01-mbar region. We also report the detection of CO emission at 4.7 µm 4.5 hrs after the L impact, indicative of a temperature of 274±10 K at the ∼1016 CO molec cm−2 level. The observations suggest that the stratospheric temperature decreases wi…