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

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 aim to 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 + ℜ(k2 − h2) ~ 0.02–0.1 and ℑ(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 h. Tidal winds are very weak, of the order of 3 × 10−4 m s−1 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 its internal ocean.