Abstract
Like sailing ships, drifting buoys and icebergs on the seas of Earth, the motion of a capsule floating on the cold methane/ethane seas of Saturn׳s moon Titan results from the balance of aerodynamic and hydrodynamic forces above and below the ‘waterline’. This balance is evaluated in the context of a NASA proposal to send such a capsule to perform oceanographic and other measurements on the ~400km wide Ligeia Mare in 2023. Taking liquid and air density into account (the sea:air density ratio on Titan is ~100, compared with ~800 on Earth) in the drag balance, it is expected that the vehicle will drift at a fraction f of the near-surface windspeed with f~0.08–0.18. Consideration of wave effects suggests a correction of the form f′~f(1+0.7U104). Winds of about 0.3m/s are expected in this season (late Northern summer), and drift trajectories using two different global circulation models are computed. It is expected that the vehicle would encounter the coastline after drifting ~150km over 2–10 Titan days (~32–150 Earth days.)
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