Program: GN-2022A-Q-133

Titan has the only known extra-terrestrial hydrologic cycle, which includes clouds, rivers, and surface liquid reservoirs concentrated in seas at the North Pole. These seas are believed to play a crucial role in the hydrologic cycle, but little it still known about their dynamics, evolution, and interconnection. One critical piece to answering these questions is constraining the composition of Titan's largest sea: Kraken Mare, which could not be constrained by observations with Cassini. Here we propose to use GNIRS to place constraints on the abundance of ethane in Kraken Mare through high-resolution spectroscopy of the 2.03-micron ethane triplet located in the 2.0-micron methane window of Titan's atmosphere. Detection of ethane would provide evidence for the flushing of Ligeia Mare to Kraken Mare, proving a complex dynamic interaction between the seas of Titan and offering an important insight into the connection of Titan's surface reservoirs.