Titan IR Spectroscopy Options

[StargazeInWonder]

While Spitzer is in the news for other reasons, here is a new paper about old (cold) Spitzer data on Titan, placing it in the context of upcoming JWST publications.

Titan is an amazingly complex target, as the IR spectrum is wide, the atmosphere is deep, the number of compounds is seemingly boundless, and the surface is diverse. What JWST offers is the ability to resolve surface units and characterize them specifically but it's necessary to subtract the signal from the overlying atmosphere. JWST should end up serving as one of the most significant sources of information about Titan, with the potential to answer some questions about its chemistry that even Cassini-Huygens couldn't crack.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2305.13234.pdf

[Bill Harris]

It's wonderful that a telescope designed (or thought of) deep sky observations is proving to be useful for solar system work.

--Bill