Titan, Saturn's largest moon, has a surface whose underlying bedrock is water ice but for which the overlying sediments are organic molecules. Under the dense nitrogen-methane atmosphere, from which a variety of nitriles and hydrocarbons precipitate, the surface organics are organized into dune fields, and at high latitudes, liquid hydrocarbon lakes and seas. Cassini and Huygens observations indicate that surface chemical evolution takes place, for example conversion of acetylene to benzene and (possibly) with hydrogen cyanide to acetonitrile and cyanoacetylene. Observatons of the area around the lakes and seas suggest that 'evaporite' deposits of refractory hydrocarbons and nitriles are present. The chemical evolution of this material, under study by computer simulations at present, makes such sites of primary interest for future landed missions.

Titan's surface chemical evolution

246th National Meeting (2013)

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