Abstract

Little is known of the structure and seismic nature of icy satellites, planetary bodies that have an outer shell of ice instead of a rocky crust. One such body, Saturn's moon Titan, is unique because of its thick atmosphere, hydrologic cycle similar to Earth's, and salty subsurface ocean. The Dragonfly mission, set to launch in 2026, will use a robotic rotorcraft to transport various instruments, including a seismometer, to the Shangri-La dune field on Titan. Until then, Titan's seismic regime can be estimated by simulating wave propagation through assumed layering using source models. Ridge belts with low slope angles suggest fold-and-thrust belts possibly caused by fluid overpressures in Titan's icy shell. These have been observed in synthetic aperture radar images from Cassini and may be a likely site for Titan-quakes. Synthetic seismograms are calculated for Titan-quakes using Instaseis, a Python-based software sourced by Green's function databases computed by the axisymmetric spectral element method. Back-azimuth angles are calculated for different source-receiver configurations. Very high amplitude waves are interpreted as surface waves. The PP wave is the first arrival at distances greater than 35 degrees. At 45 degrees, S waves are not distinguishable.