Titan tagged posts

An artist’s rendering of the surface of Titan, a moon of Saturn. Courtesy: iPhoto Stock, manjik. Inset: This composite image shows an infrared view of Saturn’s moon Titan from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, acquired during the mission’s “T-114” flyby on Nov. 13, 2015.
Credit: NASA/JPL

The grains that cover Saturn’s moon act like clingy packing peanuts. Experiments led by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology suggest the particles that cover the surface of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, are “electrically charged.” When the wind blows hard enough (~15 mph), Titan’s non-silicate granules get kicked up and start to hop in a motion referred to as saltation...

Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, has features that resemble Earth’s geology, with deep, steep-sided canyons. Credit: Cassini/NASA/JPL

Although Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is surrounded by a thick, hazy atmosphere, Cornell astronomers have revealed that the moon’s terrain features deep, steep-sided canyons filled with liquid hydrocarbons. While NASA’s Cassini mission previously had imaged the channels flowing into the large northern sea Ligeia Mare, the new observations used the Cassini radar’s altimetry mode to measure their topography. The surprising results showed canyons hundreds of feet deep featuring specular reflections from the channel floors, the first direct evidence that they are currently filled with liquid.

“Earth is warm and rocky, with rivers of water, while Titan is cold and ...

These images from the Radar instrument aboard NASA’s Cassini spacecraft show the evolution of a transient feature in the large hydrocarbon sea named Ligeia Mare on Saturn’s moon Titan. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI/Cornell

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has found deep, steep-sided canyons on Titan that are flooded with liquid hydrocarbons. The finding represents the first direct evidence of the presence of liquid-filled channels on Titan, as well as the first observation of canyons hundreds of meters deep. Scientists analyzed Cassini data from a close pass the spacecraft made over Titan in May 2013. During the flyby, Cassini’s radar focused on channels that branch out from the large, northern sea Ligeia Mare.

The Cassini observations reveal that the channels – in particular, a network of them na...

Sunlight glints off of Titan’s northern seas this near-infrared, color mosaic from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL/Univ. Arizona/Univ. Idaho

A new study finds that a large sea on Saturn’s moon Titan is composed mostly of pure liquid methane, independently confirming an earlier result. The seabed may be covered in a sludge of carbon- and nitrogen-rich material, and its shores may be surrounded by wetlands. Of the hundreds of moons in our solar system, Titan is the only one with a dense atmosphere and large liquid reservoirs on its surface, making it in some ways more like a terrestrial planet.

Both Earth and Titan have nitrogen-dominated atmospheres — over 95% nitrogen in Titan’s case...