Neptune's Triton: A moon rich in dry ice and carbon

Technical Report · Tue Aug 01 04:00:00 EDT 1989

OSTI ID:6851282

Prentice, A J.R.

The encounter of the spacecraft Voyager 2 with Neptune and its large satellite Triton in August 1989 will provide a crucial test of ideas regarding the origin and chemical composition of the outer solar system. In this pre-encounter publication, the possibility is quantified that Titron is a captured moon which, like Pluto and Charon, originally condensed as a major planetesimal within the gas ring that was shed by the contracting protosolar cloud at Neptune's orbit. Ideas of supersonic convective turbulence are used to compute the gas pressure, temperature and rat of catalytic synthesis of CH{sub 4}, CO{sub 2}, and C(s) within the protosolar cloud, assuming that all C is initially present as CO. The calculations lead to a unique composition for Triton, Pluto, Charon: each body consists of, by mass, 18 1/2% solid CO{sub 2} ice, 4 percent graphite, 1/2% CH{sub 4} ice, 29 percent methanated water ice and 48 percent of anhydrous rock. This mix has a density consistent with that of the Pluto-Charon system and yields a predicted mean density for Triton of 2.20 + or - 0.5 g/cu cm, for satellite radius equal to 1,750 km.

• Research Organization: Jet Propulsion Lab., Pasadena, CA (USA)
• OSTI ID: 6851282
• Report Number(s): N-90-16675; NASA-CR--186298; NAS--1.26:186298; JPL-Publ--89-37
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

640107* -- Astrophysics & Cosmology-- Planetary Phenomena
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ALKANES
CARBON
CARBON COMPOUNDS
CARBON DIOXIDE
CARBON OXIDES
CHALCOGENIDES
CHEMICAL COMPOSITION
CONVECTION
DATA
ELEMENTS
ENERGY TRANSFER
HEAT TRANSFER
HYDROCARBONS
ICE
INFORMATION
MASS TRANSFER
METHANE
NEPTUNE PLANET
NONMETALS
NUMERICAL DATA
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
OXIDES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PLANETS
PROTOPLANETS
SATELLITES
THEORETICAL DATA
TURBULENCE