The Tides of Titan
Abstract
We have detected in Cassini spacecraft data the signature of the periodic tidal stresses within Titan, driven by the eccentricity (e = 0.028) of its 16-day orbit around Saturn. Precise measurements of the acceleration of Cassini during six close flybys between 2006 and 2011 have revealed that Titan responds to the variable tidal field exerted by Saturn with periodic changes of its quadrupole gravity, at about 4% of the static value. Two independent determinations of the corresponding degree-2 Love number yield k_2 = 0.589 ± 0.150 and k2 = 0.637 ± 0.224 (2σ). Such a large response to the tidal field requires that Titan's interior be deformable over time scales of the orbital period, in a way that is consistent with a global ocean at depth.
Additional Information
© 2012 American Association for the Advancement of Science. Received for publication 25 January 2012. Accepted for publication 6 June 2012. Published online 28 June 2012. L.I., M.D., P.R., and P.T. acknowledge support from the Italian Space Agency. The work of R.A.J., J.W.A., S.W.A., and N.J.R. was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with NASA. The Doppler data used in this analysis are archived in NASA's Planetary Data System.Attached Files
Supplemental Material - Iess2012p19087Science.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 33113
- DOI
- 10.1126/science.1219631
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20120813-090552775
- Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI)
- NASA/JPL/Caltech
- Created
-
2012-08-13Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences