Experiments corroborate theory about how Titan maintains its atmosphere

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Experiments corroborate theory about how Titan maintains its atmosphere

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SwRI is studying how Saturn’s largest moon maintains its thick atmosphere. Scientists think Titan’s core is covered by several layers of ice and a subsurface liquid ocean. New experiments indicate that nitrogen and methane gases produced by the organic materials at its core could seep up to the surface, continuously replenishing Titan’s atmosphere. Credit: Southwest Research Institute

Southwest Research Institute partnered with the Carnegie Institution for Science to perform laboratory experiments to better understand how Saturn’s moon Titan can maintain its unique nitrogen-rich atmosphere. Titan is the second largest moon in our solar system and the only one that has a significant atmosphere.

“While just 40% the diameter of the Earth, Titan has an atmosphere 1.5 times as dense as the Earth’s, even with a lower gravity,” said SwRI’s Dr. Kelly Miller, lead author of a paper about these findings

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in the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. “Walking on the surface of Titan would feel a bit like scuba diving.”

The origin, age, and evolution of this atmosphere, which is roughly 95% nitrogen and 5% methane, has puzzled scientists since it was discovered in 1944.

“The presence of methane is critical to the existence of Titan’s atmosphere,” Miller says. “The methane is removed by reactions caused by sunlight and would disappear in about 30 million years after which the atmosphere would freeze onto the surface. Scientists think an internal source must replenish the methane, or else the atmosphere has a geologically short lifetime.”

Miller was also the lead author of a 2019 paper published in the Astrophysical Journal that proposed a theoretical model of how the atmosphere may have developed and is replenished over the years.

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To understand the persistent thick atmosphere on Saturn’s largest moon, SwRI worked with the Carnegie Institution for Science Laboratory to create conditions mimicking those at Titan’s rocky core. These laboratory experiments heated and pressurized tubes of organics, producing nitrogen and methane, gases necessary to maintain Titan’s atmosphere. Credit: Southwest Research Institute

The paper theorizes that large amounts of highly complex organic materials are heated up in Titan’s rocky interior, releasing nitrogen as well as carbon gases like methane. The gas then seeps out at the surface, where it forms a thick atmosphere around the moon.

This theory is corroborated by recent experiments that heated organic materials to temperatures of 250 to 500 Celsius at pressures up to 10 kilobars to simulate the interior conditions of Titan. The experiments produced carbon gases like carbon dioxide and methane in sufficient quantities to help supply Titan’s atmospheric reservoir.

The paper is largely based on data from NASA’s Cassini-Huygens spacecraft mission, which launched in 1997 and explored the Saturn system from 2004 to 2017. NASA plans to launch its next mission to the Saturnian system in 2028 with a spacecraft dubbed Dragonfly. It will include a quadcopter designed to explore Titan up close and investigate whether environments at Titan could have ever been conducive for life. Miller is working next with a global team of researchers to study the habitability of the subsurface liquid ocean.

More information:
K.E. Miller et al, Experimental heating of complex organic matter at Titan’s interior conditions supports contributions to atmospheric N2 and CH4, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (2024).

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Experiments corroborate theory about how Titan maintains its atmosphere (2025, January 27)
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