Europlanet Science Congress 2021
Virtual meeting
13 – 24 September 2021
Europlanet Science Congress 2021
Virtual meeting
13 September – 24 September 2021
EPSC Abstracts
Vol. 15, EPSC2021-647, 2021
https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2021-647
European Planetary Science Congress 2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Formation conditions of Titan

Carmen Immerzeel1, Stéphanie Cazaux1,2, and Nick Oberg1
Carmen Immerzeel et al.
  • 1Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands (c.n.immerzeel@student.tudelft.nl)
  • 2University of Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands

Satellites are generally believed to form in circumplanetary disks (CPDs): a gas disk containing icy and rocky particles that accumulate to form massive moons over time. The discoveries by the Cassini-Huygens mission have led to a revision of the birth environment of the Saturnian system.

We aim to constrain the formation circumstances of Titan's building blocks by considering the moon's observed characteristics. We use radiation thermo-chemical CPD models and evaluate them on their capacity to reproduce a Titan-like satellite.

To form a moon with Titan's ice-to-rock ratio, we find that the dust-to-gas ratio in the CPD must be in the order of solar nebula values, O(10-2). The ice availability upon accretion is otherwise incompatible with Titan's moment of inertia. Our models predict a large NH3 inventory was available upon Titan's formation, ∼10-20wt.% of the total ice. This is consistent with the hypothesis that the observed N2 in Titan is captured as NH3 and converted by photolysis and shock heating, and is compatible with the possible presence of a conductive layer at 45±15 km as revealed by the Huygens probe.

How to cite: Immerzeel, C., Cazaux, S., and Oberg, N.: Formation conditions of Titan, European Planetary Science Congress 2021, online, 13–24 Sep 2021, EPSC2021-647, https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2021-647, 2021.