The Cassini mission is providing better and better data
and imageries of just what’s really happening on the surface of Saturn’s moon
Titan. And it’s starting to appear awfully familiar. The newest data NASA scientists have been receiving displays new details about the bizarre lakes and seas that flood
across Saturn’s cold moon, Titan. It also appeals contrasts amid the only other
interstellar body discovered to have similarly liquid lakes and seas on its superficial—our
very own Earth. But Unlike our watery world, Titan’s lakes and seas comprise pure liquid methane.
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Cassini’s latest view of Titan’s seas, Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Univ.
Arizona/Univ. Idaho
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But the question arises here is, how do the seas stay completely
filled with all that methane? Researchers now think that Titan probably uses
the same process as Earth: Rain. Obviously, instead of being comprised of
liquid water, that rain is also made up of clean liquid methane. But still, it
is rain which, as it falls, fills up the lakes. These liquid methane lakes then
generate Titan’s shorelines, which appear very much like our own as you can see
in this flyover visualization:
Scientists even believe that the weather along with those Titan shorelines acts a lot like the shores along our own seas, with temperatures along them effected by the temperature in the lake.
But even though the liquid cycle joined with Titan’s
nitrogen-heavy atmosphere may appear a lot like Earth, there’s a lot of variances
to separate them.
For example: Titan’s nearly complete lack of oxygen,
the chilly temperatures, and the irritating fact that its liquid methane
filling up those seas instead of water.
Still, it’s pretty much a familiar sight to see in some
extremely strange landscape.
