EGU23-6487, updated on 25 Feb 2023
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-6487
EGU General Assembly 2023
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

The chemical composition of the Soi crater region on Titan. 

Anezina Solomonidou1,2, Michael Malaska3, Rosaly Lopes3, Athena Coustenis4, Ashley Schoenfeld5, Bernard Schmitt6, Samuel Birch7, and Alice Le Gall8,9
Anezina Solomonidou et al.
  • 1Hellenic Space Center, Athens, Greece
  • 2California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.
  • 3Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.
  • 4LESIA–Observatoire de Paris, CNRS, UPMC Univ. Paris 06, Univ. Paris-Diderot, Meudon, France.
  • 5Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
  • 6Institut de Planétologie et d’Astrophysique de Grenoble, Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Grenoble, France.
  • 7Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
  • 8Institut LATMOS/IPSL, UVSQ Université Paris-Saclay, Sorbonne Université, CNRS, France.
  • 9Institut Universitaire de France, Paris, France.

The Soi crater region, with the well-preserved Soi crater in its center, covers almost 10% of Titan’s surface. Schoenfeld et al. (2023) [1] mapped this region at 1:800,000 scale and produced a geomorphological map showing that the area consists of 22 distinct geomorphological units. The region includes the boundaries between the equatorial regions of Titan and the mid-latitudes and extends into the high northern latitudes (above 50o). We analyzed 262 different locations from several Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) datacubes using a radiative transfer technique [2] and a mixing model [3], yielding compositional constraints on Titan’s optical surface layer and near-surface substrate compositional constraints using RADAR microwave emissivity. We have derived combinations of top surface materials between dark materials, tholin-like materials, water-ice, and methane. We found no evidence of CO2 and NH3 ice. We discuss our results in terms of origin and evolution theories.

[1] Schoenfeld, A., et al. (2023), JGR-Planets 128, e2022JE007499; [2] Solomonidou, A., et al., (2020a), Icarus, 344, 113338; [3] Solomonidou, A., et al. (2020b), A&A, 641, A16.

How to cite: Solomonidou, A., Malaska, M., Lopes, R., Coustenis, A., Schoenfeld, A., Schmitt, B., Birch, S., and Le Gall, A.: The chemical composition of the Soi crater region on Titan. , EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-6487, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-6487, 2023.