Gravitational atmospheric tides as a probe of Titan's interior: Application to Dragonfly

TL;DR

This paper models Saturn's gravitational tides on Titan's atmosphere and interior to show how Dragonfly's measurements could reveal Titan's internal structure and properties.

Contribution

It introduces analytical and 3D climate models to predict how Titan's interior responds to Saturn's tides, aiding interpretation of Dragonfly data.

Findings

Titan's Love numbers are predicted to be 0.02-0.1.

Surface pressure variations due to tides are about 5 Pa.

Dragonfly can estimate interior properties with 0.01-0.03 precision.

Abstract

Context: Saturn's massive gravity is expected to causes a tide in Titan's atmosphere, producing a surface pressure variation through the orbit of Titan and tidal winds in the troposphere. The future Dragonfly mission could analyse this exotic meteorological phenomenon. Aims: We analyse the effect of Saturn's tides on Titan's atmosphere and interior to determine how pressure measurements by Dragonfly could constrain Titan's interior. Methods: We model atmospheric tides with analytical calculations and with a 3D Global Climate Model (the IPSL-Titan GCM), including the tidal response of the interior. Results: We predict that the Love numbers of Titan's interior should verify 1 + Re(k2 - h2) ~ 0.02-0.1 and Im(k2 - h2) < 0.04. The deformation of Titan's interior should therefore strongly weaken gravitational atmospheric tides, yielding a residual surface pressure amplitude of only ~ 5 Pa, with a phase shift of 5-20 hours. Tidal winds are very weak, of the order of 3*10^-4 m/s in the lower troposphere. Finally, constraints from Dragonfly data may permit the real and the imaginary parts of k2 - h2 to be estimated with a precision of ~0.01-0.03. Conclusions: Measurements of pressure variations by Dragonfly over the whole mission could give valuable constraints on the thickness of Titan's ice shell, and via geophysical models, its heat flux and the density of Titan's internal ocean.