One of Titan's most intriguing attributes is its copious but featureless atmosphere. The Voyager 1 fly-by and occultation in 1980 provided the first radial survey of Titan's atmospheric pressure and temperature^{1, 2} and evidence for the presence of strong zonal winds³. It was realized that the motion of an atmospheric probe could be used to study the winds, which led to the inclusion of the Doppler Wind Experiment⁴ on the Huygens probe⁵. Here we report a high resolution vertical profile of Titan's winds, with an estimated accuracy of better than 1 m s^-1. The zonal winds were prograde during most of the atmospheric descent, providing in situ confirmation of superrotation on Titan. A layer with surprisingly slow wind, where the velocity decreased to near zero, was detected at altitudes between 60 and 100 km. Generally weak winds (1 m s^-1) were seen in the lowest 5 km of descent.

1. Radioastronomisches Institut, Universität Bonn, Auf dem Hügel 71, 53125 Bonn, Germany
2. NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, 2880 Broadway, New York, New York 10025, USA
3. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, California 91109, USA
4. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho 83844-1023, USA
5. Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe, PO Box 2, 7990 AA Dwingeloo, The Netherlands
6. Institut für HF-Technik, Universität Bochum, 44780 Bochum, Germany
7. Elektrotechnisches Institut, Technische Universität Dresden, 01062 Dresden, Germany
8. Center for Radar Astronomy, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA

Correspondence to: M. K. Bird¹ Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to M.K.B. (Email: mbird@astro.uni-bonn.de).

Received 20 May 2005; Accepted 20 July 2005

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