Characterization of zonal winds in the stratosphere of Titan with UVES: 2. Observations coordinated with the Huygens Probe entry
Résumé
The Huygens Probe has successfully entered Titan's atmosphere and landed on its surface on 14 January 2005. With the aim of characterizing the zonal wind flow in Titan's stratosphere close to the time of entry, coordinated observations were carried out at the Very Large Telescope on the nights of 7, 12, 14, and 15 January. As in our previous investigation (Luz et al., 2005), we used the UVES instrument, mounted on the Kueyen-UT2 telescope, simultaneously achieving high spectral resolving power and high spatial resolution. The field has been derotated in order to align the 0.3-arcsec aperture perpendicularly to Titan's rotation axis. In this configuration, spatial information in the east-west direction is preserved in a set of spectra in the direction perpendicular to dispersion. We present measurements of zonal winds obtained with the technique of absolute accelerometry. The observations were made in the wavelength range 4200-6200 Å, probing between 115 and 280 km, with peak contributions at 200 and 170 km for the lower and upper parts of the domain. We detect prograde zonal winds with lower limits 46 and 53 ms-1 at these altitudes. These values are close to our previous measurements.
Domaines
Astrophysique [astro-ph]
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Journal of Geophysical Research Planets - 2006 - Luz - Characterization of zonal winds in the stratosphere of Titan with.pdf (979.38 Ko)
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