The Composition and Chemistry of Titan's Atmosphere

Abstract

In this article I summarize the current state of knowledge about the composition of Titan's atmosphere, and our current understanding of the suggested chemistry that leads to that observed composition. I begin with our present knowledge of the atmospheric composition, garnered from a variety of measurements including Cassini-Huygens, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), and other ground and space-based telescopes. This review focuses on the typical vertical profiles of gases at low latitudes, rather than global and temporal variations. The main body of the paper presents a chemical description of how complex molecules are believed to arise from simpler species, considering all known 'stable' molecules - those that have been uniquely identified in the neutral atmosphere. The last section of the paper is devoted to the gaps in our present knowledge of Titan's chemical composition and how further work may fill those gaps.

177 pages, 45 figures

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