Titan's aerosols: Comparison between our model and DISR findings

Abstract

Our model [Dimitrov, V., Bar-Nun, A., 1999. A model of energy dependent agglomeration of hydrocarbon aerosol particles and implication to Titan's aerosol. J. Aerosol. Sci. 30(1), 35–49] describes the experimentally found polymerization of C 2H 2 and HCN to form aerosol embryos, their growth and adherence to form various aerosols objects [Bar-Nun, A., Kleinfeld, I., Ganor, E., 1988. Shape and optical properties of aerosols formed by photolysis of C 2H 2, C 2H 4 and HCN. J. Geophys. Res. 93, 8383–8387]. These loose fractal objects describe well the findings of DISR on the Huygens probe [Tomasko, M.G., Bézard, B., Doose, L., Engel, S., Karkoschka, E., 2008. Measurements of methane absorption by the descent imager/spectral radiometer (DISR) during its descent through Titan's atmosphere. Planet. Space Sci., this issue, doi:10.1016/j.pss.2007]. These include (1) various regular objects of R=(0.035–0.064)×10 −6 m, as compared with DISR's 0.05×10 −6 m; (2) diverse low and high fractal structures composed of random combinations of various regular and irregular objects; (3) the number density of fractal particles is 6.9×10 6 m −3 at Z=100 km, as compared with DISR's finding of 5.0×10 6 m −3 at Z=80 km; (4) the number of structural units per higher fractals in the atmosphere at Z∼100 km is (2400–2700), as compared with DISR's 3000, and their size being of R=(5.4–6.4)×10 −6 m will satisfy this value and (5) condensation of CH 4 on the highly fractal structures could begin at the altitude where thin methane clouds were observed, filling somewhat the new open fractal structures.