Spectral properties of Titan's impact craters imply chemical weathering of its surface

We examined the spectral properties of a selection of Titan's impact craters that represent a range of degradation states. The most degraded craters have rims and ejecta blankets with spectral characteristics that suggest that they are more enriched in water ice than the rims and ejecta blankets of the freshest craters on Titan. The progression is consistent with the chemical weathering of Titan's surface. We propose an evolutionary sequence such that Titan's craters expose an intimate mixture of water ice and organic materials, and chemical weathering by methane rainfall removes the soluble organic materials, leaving the insoluble organics and water ice behind. These observations support the idea that fluvial processes are active in Titan's equatorial regions.

Evolution of Titan and implications for its hydrocarbon cycle

Measurements of the carbon and nitrogen isotopic ratios as well as the detection of 40Ar and 36Ar by the gas chromatograph mass spectrometer (GCMS) instrument on board the Huygens probe have provided key constraints on the origin and evolution of Titan's atmosphere, and indirectly on the evolution of its interior. Those data combined with models of Titan's interior can be used to determine the story of volatile outgassing since Titan's formation. In the absence of an internal source, methane, which is irreversibly photodissociated in Titan's stratosphere, should be removed entirely from the atmosphere in a time-span of a few tens of millions of years. The episodic destabilization of methane clathrate reservoir stored within Titan's crust and subsequent methane outgassing could explain the present atmospheric abundance of methane, as well as the presence of argon in the atmosphere. The idea that methane is released from the interior through eruptive processes is also supported by the observations of several cryovolcanic-like features on Titan's surface by the mapping spectrometer (VIMS) and the radar on board Cassini. Thermal instabilities within the icy crust, possibly favoured by the presence of ammonia, may explain the observed features and provide the conditions for eruption of methane and other volatiles. Episodic resurfacing events associated with thermal and compositional instabilities in the icy crust can have major consequences on the hydrocarbon budget on Titan's surface and atmosphere.