Observations Indicate Saturn’s Moon Titan May Be “Riddled With Caves”

Recent images taken by the Cassini spacecraft indicates that the highlands of Saturn‘s moon Titan may be riddled with caves.

The  Xanadu region of Titan is about 4000 kilometers (about 2500 miles) wide. While already though to be a highland area, Cassini’s haze-penetrating radar shows that  the interior of the region is crossed by mountain ranges rising to a height of 1,000 meters (about 3,000 feet)  This contrasts with most of Titan’s surface, which appears relatively flat.

“These are the highest mountains measured on Titan so far,” says Cassini team member Ralph Lorenz of the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Radio waves bouncing off Xanadu indicate these mountains are not solid. They appear to have strange electrical properties – specifically a low “dielectric constant,” which means they shouldn’t be solid enough to stand.

“The only reasonable material makeup that could have a very low dielectric constant and still hold together enough to form the structures that we see would be some sort of porous stuff – most likely porous water ice,” says another team member, Steve Wall of the NASA JPL in  Pasadena, California.

One theory is that the region is filled with caverns, possible carved out by the methane rain that is believed to fall on Titan.

Erosion from that rain would also form the long river valleys along the Xanadu region’s edge. Cassini scientists theorize that these rivers carry ice grains down to the plains to form the dunes seen on much of Titan’s surface.

There are also small, dark patches in this region. These may be methane lakes, although there little evidence of liquid still present on the surface. Evidence of liquid may be forthcoming, however.  This weekend, Cassini will take pictures of Titan’s north pole, where lakes or seas to would be likely to exist, since the extreme cold would keep methane from evaporating into gaseous form.

You can view a Quicktime video of the the Cassini images here.

Via New Scientist

Recent images taken by the Cassini spacecraft indicates that the highlands of Saturn‘s moon Titan may be riddled with caves.

The  Xanadu region of Titan is about 4000 kilometers (about 2500 miles) wide. While already though to be a highland area, Cassini’s haze-penetrating radar shows that  the interior of the region is crossed by mountain ranges rising to a height of 1,000 meters (about 3,000 feet)  This contrasts with most of Titan’s surface, which appears relatively flat.

“These are the highest mountains measured on Titan so far,” says Cassini team member Ralph Lorenz of the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Radio waves bouncing off Xanadu indicate these mountains are not solid. They appear to have strange electrical properties – specifically a low “dielectric constant,” which means they shouldn’t be solid enough to stand.

“The only reasonable material makeup that could have a very low dielectric constant and still hold together enough to form the structures that we see would be some sort of porous stuff – most likely porous water ice,” says another team member, Steve Wall of the NASA JPL in  Pasadena, California.

One theory is that the region is filled with caverns, possible carved out by the methane rain that is believed to fall on Titan.

Erosion from that rain would also form the long river valleys along the Xanadu region’s edge. Cassini scientists theorize that these rivers carry ice grains down to the plains to form the dunes seen on much of Titan’s surface.

There are also small, dark patches in this region. These may be methane lakes, although there little evidence of liquid still present on the surface. Evidence of liquid may be forthcoming, however.  This weekend, Cassini will take pictures of Titan’s north pole, where lakes or seas to would be likely to exist, since the extreme cold would keep methane from evaporating into gaseous form.

You can view a Quicktime video of the the Cassini images here.

Via New Scientist