DPS Pasadena Meeting 2000, 23-27 October 2000
Session 17. Titan - I
Oral, Chairs: C. Griffith, C. McKay, Tuesday, 2000/10/24, 10:30am-12:10pm, Little Theater (C107)

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[17.03] Near- and mid-Infrared Resolved Imaging of Titan's Atmosphere

H.G. Roe, I. de Pater (UC Berkeley), S.G. Gibbard, B. Macintosh, C.E. Max (IGPP/LLNL), C.P. McKay (NASA Ames)

We present spatially resolved images of Titan in the near-infrared (1-2.5 \mum) with the W.M.\ Keck Observatory Adaptive Optics (AO) system and in the mid-infrared (8-13 \mum) with the Keck Long Wave Spectometer (LWS). On 30 October 1999 (UT) we observed a bright cloud band at 70\fdgS latitude in two narrowband filters (each ~1% bandwidth centered on 1.158 \mum and 1.702 \mum) chosen such that they selectively probe the atmosphere above the tropopause. The feature was spatially unresolved in latitude and extended over all visible longitudes. From measurements of a star, the AO system achieved a spatial resolution at 1.158 \mum of 0.032'', or 190 km on Titan. Further, we observed a broad haze band extending over approximately 60\circ of latitude centered slightly south of Titan's equator. This feature is apparent in near-infrared AO images from October 1999. Mid-infrared LWS images from September and November 1999 with a resolution of ~0.2'' show structure across the disk of Titan, and we compare these with models of haze thermal emission in order to determine the haze distribution.

HGR is funded by a NASA-GSRP fellowship. This research was supported in part by the STC Program of the National Science Foundation under Agreement No. AST-9876783, and in part under the auspices of the US Department of Energy at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Univ. of Calif. under contract No. W-7405-Eng-48.



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