EXPERIMENTS AND SIMULATION MODELS FOR THE STUDY OF PREBIOTIC CHEMISTRY IN Titan's ATMOSPHERE

摘要

The special importance of Saturn's satellite Titan lies in its primitive, chemically reducing nature of the atmosphere, which could be compared with models for the studies of the prebiological chemical evolution in early atmospheres of terrestrial planets. Our study which is under preparation as an Austrian FWF-project will give us a better understanding concerning the formation of prebiotic molecules. The first part of our project will focus on the simulation of chemical reactions that can take place on Titan, also considering the energetic inputs such as lightning discharges, UV-radiation, and micrometeorites. By using tfie data already obtained and the results of theoretical simulations, we will create a model about the distribution of chemical substances. Further, we plan to construct a reaction chamber representing Titan's atmosphere including temperature, pressure and gas composition. A high frequency generator and a UV LASER will be used for the energetic inputs. The results of the experiments, measured by Gas Chromatography ― Mass Spectrometer (GCMS) should verify the theoretical models. The NASA/ESA Cassini/Huygens mission to the Saturn system and the exploration of Titan will give us a huge amount of new information about the atmospheric chemistry, which will be used for modifying our theoretical models and the experimental set-up of our reaction chamber.