TEXES spectra of Saturn from February 03 2013

DOI

The abundance of deuterium in giant planet atmospheres provides constraints on the reservoirs of ices incorporated into these worlds during their formation and evolution. Motivated by discrepancies in the measured deuterium-hydrogen ratio (D/H) on Jupiter and Saturn, we present a new measurement of the D/H ratio in methane for Saturn from ground-based measurements. We analysed a spectral cube (covering 1151-1160cm^-1^ from 6 February 2013) from the Texas Echelon Cross Echelle Spectrograph (TEXES) on NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) where emission lines from both methane and deuterated methane are well resolved. Our estimate of the D/H ratio in stratospheric methane, 1.65(-0.21/+0.27)10^-5^ is in agreement with results derived from Cassini CIRS and ISO/SWS observations, confirming the unexpectedly low CH3D abundance. Assuming a fractionation factor of 1.34(+/-0.19) we derive a hydrogen D/H of 1.23(-0.23/+0.27)10^-5^. This value remains lower than previous tropospheric hydrogen D/H measurements of (i) Saturn 2.10(+/-0.13)10^-5^, (ii) Jupiter 2.6(+/-0.7)10^-5^ and (iii) the proto-solar hydrogen D/H of 2.1(+/-0.5)*10^-5^, suggesting that the fractionation factor may not be appropriate for stratospheric methane, or that the D/H ratio in Saturn's stratosphere is not representative of the bulk of the planet.

Associated data

Identifier
DOI http://doi.org/10.26093/cds/vizier.36530066
Source https://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/lp/custom/CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/653/A66
Related Identifier https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/A+A/653/A66
Related Identifier https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/653/A66
Related Identifier https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/assocdata/?obs_collection=J/A+A/653/A66
Metadata Access http://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/pmh/pubreg.xml?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_b2find&identifier=ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/653/A66
Provenance
Creator Blake J.S.D.; Fletcher L.N.; Greathouse T.K.; Orton G.S.; Melin H.,Roman M.T.; Antunano A.; Donnelly P.T.; Rowe-Gurney N.; King O.
Publisher CDS
Publication Year 2021
Rights https://cds.unistra.fr/vizier-org/licences_vizier.html
OpenAccess true
Contact CDS support team <cds-question(at)unistra.fr>
Representation
Resource Type Dataset; AstroObjects
Discipline Astrophysics and Astronomy; Interdisciplinary Astronomy; Natural Sciences; Observational Astronomy; Physics; Solar System Astronomy