Spatial Variations of Low-mass Negative Ions in Titan’s Upper Atmosphere

Teodora Mihailescu,Anne Wellbrock,Richard Haythornthwaite,Andrew J Coates,Ravindra T Desai,Jonathan P Eastwood,Oleg Shebanits,J Hunter Waite

doi:10.3847/psj/abb1ba

Teodora Mihailescu, Anne Wellbrock + Show 6 more

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https://doi.org/10.3847/psj/abb1ba

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Abstract

Abstract Observations with Cassini’s Electron Spectrometer discovered negative ions in Titan’s ionosphere, at altitudes between 1400 and 950 km. Within the broad mass distribution extending up to several thousand amu, two distinct peaks were identified at 25.8–26.0 and 49.0–50.1 amu/q, corresponding to the carbon chain anions CN− and/or for the first peak and C3N− and/or C4H− for the second peak. In this study we present the spatial distribution of these low-mass negative ions from 28 Titan flybys with favorable observations between 2004 October 26 and 2012 May 22. We report a trend of lower densities on the night side and increased densities up to twice as high on the day side at small solar zenith angles. To further understand this trend, we compare the negative ion densities to the total electron density measured by Cassini’s Langmuir Probe. We find the low-mass negative ion density and the electron density to be proportional to each other on the day side but independent of each other on the night side. This indicates photochemical processes and is in agreement with the primary production route for the low-mass negative ions being initiated by dissociative reactions with suprathermal electron populations produced by photoionisation. We also find the ratio of to to be highly constrained on the day side, in agreement with this production channel, but notably displaying large variations on the night side.

Highlights

Titan possesses a dense atmosphere composed of molecular nitrogen, methane, and hydrogen (Niemann et al 2005; Coustenis et al 2007) with a column density an order of magnitude larger than the Earth’s and an abundance of complex organic chemistry (Waite et al 2005; Vuitton et al 2019)
The results presented in this study are based on data collected by Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS) Electron Spectrometer (ELS) during 28 Titan flybys where negative ions were detected
We compare to ionospheric electron density trends and discuss how the observed trends could be linked to negative ion production mechanisms

Summary

Introduction

Titan possesses a dense atmosphere composed of molecular nitrogen, methane, and hydrogen (Niemann et al 2005; Coustenis et al 2007) with a column density an order of magnitude larger than the Earth’s and an abundance of complex organic chemistry (Waite et al 2005; Vuitton et al 2019). The Cassini mission studied the composition of the haze and mechanisms through which it could be produced and discovered large negatively charged ions, hereafter described as negative ions, at altitudes above 950 km (Coates et al 2007; Waite et al 2007). These surprising observations at such high altitudes indicated that these negative ions could be precursors of the aerosols forming the haze lower down.

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