Please note that this session was withdrawn and is no longer available in the respective programme. This withdrawal might have been the result of a merge with another session.
PS2.4 | Titan at Equinox: midway from Cassini-Huygens to Dragonfly
Titan at Equinox: midway from Cassini-Huygens to Dragonfly
Convener: Conor Nixon | Co-conveners: Panayotis Lavvas, Veronique Vuitton, Athena Coustenis, Zachary McQueenECSECS

Saturn’s moon Titan is a fascinating and unique environment: the only planetary satellite with a dense atmosphere. This uniqueness has led to Titan being an object of intense scientific study and mission focus, with the Voyager 1 spacecraft, Cassini-Huygens and in coming years the Dragonfly mission, all targeted to make visits through flybys or landings. Titan offers diverse environments for study, including a methane meteorology leading to rivers, lakes and seas; vast world-wide dune fields; craters; mountains; and a suspected internal water ocean. In early 2025 Titan reached a milestone in its long annual cycle: the arrival of the northern Fall equinox, and the onset of southern spring. This time period is expected to bring significant changes in Titan’s atmosphere, including shifting stratospheric haze patterns, tropospheric methane monsoons, and the breakup of the southern winter polar vortex seen by Cassini during the last years of its extended mission. This time provides an ideal opportunity to look back at the data of Cassini-Huygens, explore new observations with the James Webb Space Telescope and ground-based facilities, and discuss planned investigations with Dragonfly. This session solicits work relevant to Titan across all scientific fronts and areas of technology development, and especially encourages new ideas from early career researchers, while also encompassing exciting recent results in laboratory experiments, modeling and simulations, and astronomical observations.

Please check your login data.