This special CGCA (The Leonard E. Parker Center for Gravitation, Cosmology and Astrophysics) seminar is scheduled for Thursday 10/15/15 at 3:30 pm in Lapham 162.

Organic Chemistry on Titan
Rob Hodyss, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

The Cassini-Huygens mission has revealed Saturn’s largest moon Titan to be a remarkably Earth-like world, with a diverse landscape of rivers, lakes and seas, vast dune fields, plains and mountains. Unlike Earth, however, Titan’s visible surface is dominated by solid organic materials at cryogenic temperatures, and altered by the action of liquid methane and ethane.
Our work at JPL focuses on understanding the fundamental chemical processes that lead to this varied landscape. Dissolution and solubility of solid organics in the lakes and seas leads to erosion of Titan’s surface. The precipitation of dissolved materials as the lakes dry can result in organic evaporite deposits, which may contain novel crystalline forms only possible at cryogenic temperatures.
Even at Titan’s low surface temperature (94 K), rapid chemical reactions are still possible. We are studying the reaction of carbon dioxide with primary amines to form carbamic acids, a reaction that occurs relatively rapidly at temperatures as low as 40 K. Titan’s assorted environments and array of organic molecules are intriguing as a venue for prebiotic chemistry, and make Titan an important target for future astrobiology missions.