Titan tagged posts

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...