Carbon Monoxide Affecting Planetary Atmospheric Chemistry

CO is an important component in many N2/CH4 atmospheres including Titan, Triton, and Pluto, and has also been detected in the atmosphere of a number of exoplanets. Numerous experimental simulations have been carried out in the laboratory to understand the chemistry in N2/CH4 atmospheres, but very fe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2017-05
Main Authors: He, Chao, Horst, Sarah M, Riemer, Sydney, Sebree, Joshua A, Pauley, Nicholas, Vuitton, Veronique
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Atmospheric chemistry
Carbon monoxide
Density
Extrasolar planets
Gas mixtures
Gases
Methane
Mixing ratio
Organic chemistry
Oxygen content
Planetary atmospheres
Pluto (dwarf planet)
Simulation
Solid phases
Titan
Triton
Vapor phases
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Summary:CO is an important component in many N2/CH4 atmospheres including Titan, Triton, and Pluto, and has also been detected in the atmosphere of a number of exoplanets. Numerous experimental simulations have been carried out in the laboratory to understand the chemistry in N2/CH4 atmospheres, but very few simulations have included CO in the initial gas mixtures. The effect of CO on the chemistry occurring in these atmospheres is still poorly understood. We have investigated the effect of CO on both gas and solid phase chemistry in a series of planetary atmosphere simulation experiments using gas mixtures of CO, CH4, and N2 with a range of CO mixing ratios from 0.05% to 5% at low temperature (~100 K). We find that CO affects the gas phase chemistry, the density, and the composition of the solids. Specifically, with the increase of CO in the initial gases, there is less H2 but more H2O, HCN, C2H5N/HCNO and CO2 produced in the gas phase, while the density, oxygen content, and degree of unsaturation of the solids increase. The results indicate that CO has an important impact on the chemistry occurring in our experiments and accordingly in planetary atmospheres.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.1705.08468