{"id":6500,"date":"2013-08-02T15:35:23","date_gmt":"2013-08-02T22:35:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planets.ucla.edu\/?p=6500"},"modified":"2021-01-18T01:36:10","modified_gmt":"2021-01-18T09:36:10","slug":"professor-jonathan-mitchell-predicts-weather-on-saturns-icy-moon-titan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planets.ucla.edu\/?p=6500","title":{"rendered":"Prof. Mitchell predicts weather on Titan"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Titan in front of Saturn and its rings. Image Credit: NASA\/JPL\/Caltech\/SSI<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Saturn\u2019s largest moon, Titan, is an icy world dominated by extensive sand dunes at the equator, methane-filled lakes near the poles, and vast networks of dry riverbeds in between.\u00a0 Wrapped in a nitrogen atmosphere thicker than Earth\u2019s, Titan is an ideal test bed for studying planetary climate models for UCLA Assistant Professor Jonathan Mitchell.<\/p>\n

\u201cTitan is probably the most Earth-like place in the solar system in terms of its very active weather cycle,\u201d said Mitchell. But a weather forecaster on chilly Titan would be more likely to predict a liquid methane downpour than the water-based showers we are accustomed to on Earth.\u00a0 \u201cTitan is too cold for water to play a role in the weather.\u00a0 Instead, it rains and hails methane, the natural gas we use as fuel for our stoves,\u201d Mitchell said.<\/p>\n

So is Titan a veritable tinder box, an enormous gas leak ready to catch fire at the slightest spark?\u00a0 Not at all, said Mitchell.\u00a0 \u201cYou might worry about it exploding, but all the oxygen is locked up into water.\u00a0 If you wanted a lighter that you could carry around on Titan, then you\u2019d carry around a flint with a little vial of oxygen because there is plenty of methane in the air and the limiting ingredient is the oxygen for combustion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Titan has surface temperatures nearly 300 degrees Fahrenheit below zero (-180\u00b0 Celsius).\u00a0 Water makes up about half the solid body by mass, and where you would expect to find a rocky crust on a terrestrial planet like Earth, Titan\u2019s surface layers are composed mainly of ice.\u00a0 \u201cWater is essentially Titan\u2019s rock,\u201d said Mitchell.\u00a0 \u201cThese temperatures are so far beyond the realm of human experience that they\u2019re hard to even grasp.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the frigid conditions, Titan\u2019s climate patterns are technically quite tropical, Mitchell said.\u00a0 \u201cOn Earth, we have a certain temperature difference between the equator and the poles which gives rise to vastly different climates on the surface, like tropical islands versus Antarctica,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cOn Titan, this temperature difference is essentially erased, which makes its climate all tropics.\u201d The subzero weather results from the fact that Titan spins more slowly than Earth, taking sixteen days to complete a full rotation, and also because of its smaller size.\u00a0 While Titan is larger than Mercury and is the second largest moon in the solar system, it is still less than half the size of Earth.<\/p>\n

To be able to understand and predict weather patterns on Titan, Mitchell and his colleagues rely on observations from NASA\u2019s Cassini spacecraft that help them improve their computer simulations.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re looking at the visible and near-infrared images of Titan to survey cloud features and find interesting spatial patterns from the evolution of storms,\u201d Mitchell said.\u00a0 Because Cassini can only take measurements at Titan during its regular flyby once every few weeks, an accurate computer model is critical to understanding weather patterns on the icy body.<\/p>\n

Mitchell\u2019s research may help explain a curious phenomenon called super-rotation, which causes Titan\u2019s atmosphere to circle the planet at speeds higher than expected.\u00a0 \u201cSuper-rotation means that the atmosphere as a whole is spinning faster than the planetary surface,\u201d Mitchell said.\u00a0 \u201cThis is puzzling because we typically think an atmosphere gains its momentum from friction with the surface.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since coming to UCLA in 2009, Mitchell has expanded his work to include Earth\u2019s ancient climate, which he hopes will help him to better predict how regional climates will change as the planet warms over the next century.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ve essentially nailed the problem of anthropogenic greenhouse gases warming the planet,\u201d Mitchell said.\u00a0 \u201cThe much harder question is: what will be the resulting impacts?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mitchell grew up in rural Iowa where incessant gazing at the stars as a small child led to the occasional tripping injury.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ve always been curious, and that\u2019s what made me a scientist,\u201d Mitchell said.\u00a0 \u201cI was destined to be looking up.\u201d\u00a0 As a graduate student at the University of Chicago, Mitchell originally studied cosmology and gravitational lensing.\u00a0 But after a few years, he switched fields to study the physics of climate on Earth and other planets.\u00a0 \u201cCassini was arriving at Saturn about that time so I decided to take a pit stop at Titan, and I haven\u2019t really left since,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mitchell, who enjoys singing in small group ensembles in his spare time, has found a home at UCLA.\u00a0 \u201cAcademically, I just can\u2019t imagine a better fit for me.\u00a0 I have very broad interests and UCLA is a place where you can really expand and learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watch a video profile of Jonathan Mitchell here<\/a>.\u00a0 Learn more about his research here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saturn\u2019s largest moon, Titan, is an icy world dominated by extensive sand dunes at the equator, methane-filled lakes near the poles, and vast networks of dry riverbeds in between.\u00a0 Wrapped in a nitrogen atmosphere thicker than Earth\u2019s, Titan is an ideal test bed for studying planetary climate models for UCLA Assistant Professor Jonathan Mitchell. \u201cTitan … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Prof. Mitchell predicts weather on Titan”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":2007,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[296,32],"tags":[345,346,343,315,344],"class_list":["post-6500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-news","tag-cassini","tag-jonathan-mitchell","tag-titan","tag-ucla","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planets.ucla.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planets.ucla.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planets.ucla.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planets.ucla.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planets.ucla.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6500"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/planets.ucla.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11311,"href":"https:\/\/planets.ucla.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6500\/revisions\/11311"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planets.ucla.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planets.ucla.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planets.ucla.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planets.ucla.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}