Spectroscopy of Titan’s Atmosphere in the Mid-Infrared with JWST/MIRI

The atmosphere of Titan is abundant with a rich variety of organic molecules, providing an important test case for our models of prebiotic chemistry. Many of these molecules are uniquely detected by their vibrations in the thermal (mid) infrared spectrum from 5-25 μm, enabled us to map their distributions both spatially and over time. Since the end of the Cassini mission in 2017, and consequent demise of the Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) carried on board, our ability to monitor these gases on Titan has been greatly reduced, since ground-based observatories suffer from significant gaps in spectral coverage due to the Earth’s atmosphere. However, following the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in 2021, some of that ability has been restored via the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), a highly sensitive spectrometer covering from 5-28 μm. While still lacking in spatial sampling ability compared to Cassini CIRS, JWST’s MIRI excels in other abilities such very high signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio. In this paper, we discuss the most recent results from modeling of the MIRI spectrum of Titan, as well as ongoing challenges with the data reduction and calibration, and the outlook for future measurements.