Encounter with Saturn: Voyager 1 Imaging Science Results

Abstract

As Voyager 1 flew through the Saturn system it returned photographs revealing many new and surprising characteristics of this complicated community of bodies. Saturn's atmosphere has numerous, low-contrast, discrete cloud features and a pattern of circulation significantly different from that of Jupiter. Titan is shrouded in a haze layer that varies in thickness and appearance. Among the icy satellites there is considerable variety in density, albedo, and surface morphology and substantial evidence for endogenic surface modification. Trends in density and crater characteristics are quite unlike those of the Galilean satellites. Small inner satellites, three of which were discovered in Voyager images, interact gravitationally with one another and with the ring particles in ways not observed elsewhere in the solar system. Saturn's broad A, B, and C rings contain hundreds of "ringlets," and in the densest portion of the B ring there are numerous nonaxisymmetric features. The narrow F ring has three components which, in at least one instance, are kinked and crisscrossed. Two rings are observed beyond the F ring, and material is seen between the C ring and the planet.

The structure and dynamics of Titan's middle atmosphere

“…Smith et al 1981Smith et al , 1982Lorenz et al 2001;Porco et al 2005). Recently, Cassini near-infrared observations have detected a bright feature extending poleward of approximately 508 N (Griffith et al 2006), which is consistent with the presence of a dense C 2 H 6 cloud situated somewhere between 30 and 50 km altitude.…”

Organic environments on Saturn’s moon, Titan: Simulating chemical reactions and analyzing products by FT-ICR and ion-trap mass spectrometry

“…The mid-to-upper troposphere is in radiative equilibrium with some moist convection (liquid C 1 and C 2 hydrocarbons). Thermal infrared opacity originates from collisions among CH 4 , N 2 , and H 2 , while optical opacity is afforded by at least one hydrocarbon aerosol haze layer [13][14][15][16][17]. The stratospheric heating is provided by haze that absorbs ultraviolet (UV) and blue sunlight.…”

Interaction of Titan's ionosphere with Saturn's magnetosphere

“…There is a significant haze in the atmosphere (e.g. Porco et al 2005) which obscured the view of the surface in the visible from Voyager (Smith et al 1991), necessitating different wavelength cameras on Cassini. There is evidence on the surface for lakes (Stofan et al 2007) and for recent surface modification (Lorenz et al 2008), indicating a dynamic environment.…”