Vertical Distribution Of Cyclopropenylidene And Propadiene In The Atmosphere Of Titan

Model mixing ratios of l-C3H2 (red), c-C3H2 (blue) and t-C3H2 (yellow). Also shown are the observational results from Nixon et al. (2020) assuming a gradient profile for the abundance of c-C3H2 through the atmosphere above 350 km (open triangles).

Titan’s atmosphere is a natural laboratory for exploring the photochemical synthesis of organic molecules. 

Significant recent advances in the study of the atmosphere of Titan include: (a) detection of C3 molecules: C3H6, CH2CCH2, c-C3H2, and (b) retrieval of C6H6, which is formed primarily via C3 chemistry, from Cassini-UVIS data. The detection of c-C3H2 is of particular significance since ring molecules are of great astrobiological importance. Using the Caltech/JPL KINETICS code, along with the best available photochemical rate coefficients and parameterized vertical transport, we are able to account for the recent observations. It is significant that ion chemistry, reminiscent of that in the interstellar medium, plays a major role in the production of c-C3H2 above 1000 km.

Karen Willacy, SiHe Chen, Danica J. Adams, Yuk L. Yung

Comments: 18 pages (+ 27 page appendix), 16 figures

Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Chemical Physics (physics.chem-ph)

Cite as: arXiv:2204.13064 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2204.13064v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2204.13064

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Submission history

From: Karen Willacy 

[v1] Wed, 27 Apr 2022 17:03:47 UTC (1,150 KB)

https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.13064

Astrobiology