NAI
2009 Annual Science Report
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory - Titan
Reporting | JUL 2008 – AUG 2009
Task 1.1.1 Numerical Simulation of the Mixing of Organics and Ice During an Impact
Project Summary
On the Titan surface, organics can mix and react with liquid water created during an impact. A model simulation of an impact on the Titan surface will be used to estimate how long liquid water might exist after an impact, which will suggest how much reaction-forming prebiotic compounds may have occurred.
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Field Sites
Project Progress
Deputy Principal Investigator Jonathan Lunine began work on modeling of hypervelocity impacts and their effect on the ice crust of Titan. Lunine set up the processors to be used by Collaborator Natalie Artemieva to do numerical simulations of crustal breaching, dumping of low-shocked hydrocarbons into transient craters, and other effects of impacts into cold ice crusts of various thicknesses.
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PROJECT INVESTIGATORS:
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RELATED OBJECTIVES:
Objective 1.1
Formation and evolution of habitable planets.
Objective 2.2
Outer Solar System exploration
Objective 3.1
Sources of prebiotic materials and catalysts
Objective 3.2
Origins and evolution of functional biomolecules
Objective 3.3
Origins of energy transduction
