Saturn’s
moon Titan is
the only solar system body besides Earth and Venus with a thick
atmosphere and
solid surface and is widely considered as a natural laboratory on the
planetary
scale to understand the prebiotic chemistry on proto-Earth. The
Cassini-Huygens mission to Titan has opened a new chapter in Solar
System
exploration and extraterrestrial atmospheric chemistry. On January 14,
2005,
the Huygens probe successfully descended through the atmosphere of
Titan and
safely landed on its surface. An extraordinary new world has been
unveiled. The
scientific data obtained by the Huygens experiments and by the Cassini
Orbiter
- currently being archived and analyzed – are far from being understood.
This
workshop is part
of the NSF-Collaborative Research in Chemistry (CRC) Network "Chemistry
of
Unsaturated Hydrocarbons in Titan's Atmosphere” and the fifth in a
series of
annual meetings aimed to better understand the chemistry taking place
in the
atmosphere and on the surface of Titan. It brings together atmospheric
modelers, astronomical observers, mission specialists, planetary
scientists,
physical chemists (dynamics, kinetics, photochemistry),
theoreticians
(electronic structure, dynamics calculations), astrobiologists, and
organic
chemis. By exploring the current
boundaries of planetary science and chemical knowledge, we can more
effectively design new laboratory experiments under well-defined
conditions
(and recommend promising directions for further observational searches)
and
upcoming Solar System missions to resolve hitherto unanswered aspects
of
molecular synthesis in our Solar System.
The
workshop features
invited (45 min) as well as contributed talks (30 min) including a mix
of
observation, experiments (ion and neutral chemistry; gas phase and
condensed
phase), theory, and modeling. Please email your abstract as a pdf file
to [log in to unmask]
by February 1, 2011.
Information
on the
conference location, room reservation, and conference registration
forms can be found at http://www.chem.hawaii.edu/Bil301/Titan2011.html.
We are looking forward to seeing you on
Alexander
M. Mebel,
Ian Sims,