Something "earthly" is going on on the moon of Saturn.
Dust storms occur on Titan, a satellite of the planet Saturn. Just like on Earth. Well, or on Mars. The rampage of the titanic element was discovered by researchers from NASA, who took a closer look at the images obtained from the Cassini automatic interplanetary station.
In the infrared photos taken in 2009, strange light spots were visible. At first, they were mistaken for methane clouds, which do appear from time to time in the sky of Titan. Moreover, it rains - from liquid methane. But recent more careful analysis has shown that these are not clouds at all, but storms. Dust storms. A strong wind lifted them from the surface, specifically from the local dunes. Dust is small organic particles.
Clouds would be high, the researchers explain. The spots extended below 10 kilometers.
Titan images showing dust storm patches.
An article detailing the new feature that makes Titan related to Earth has been published in the journal Nature Geoscience. Its authors are French and American planetary scientists and geologists.
On Titan - almost like on Earth, only colder
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Last year, the Americans smashed Cassini on Saturn. But before the station, flying next to Titan, transmitted many pictures in which the researchers saw almost terrestrial landscapes. For example, in the North Pole region, a system of large lakes connected by canals was found. The smooth surface of some stretched for more than a hundred kilometers. The area is very similar to Karelia, Finland or Canada.
Near the South Pole of Titan, the station photographed a lake called Ontario. Planetary scientists from the University of Nantes saw in it a resemblance to the terrestrial salt lake Etosha Peng, located in Namibia. They don't just look alike. Both, in the same way, either fill up due to precipitation, then dry up, evaporating.
Local Karelia: lakes on Titan.
There is also a copy of the terrestrial Nile on Titan. Just a little shorter. The local Nile flows into the Kraken Sea, which is larger than the Caspian Sea, but smaller than the Mediterranean.
- On the surface of Titan, as well as on the earth, something is constantly flowing, - explain in NASA. “But it's not water that flows. After all, the satellite of Saturn is "shifted in temperature" - shifted by 100, and in some places by 200 degrees to minus relative to our world. Therefore, the seas, lakes and rivers of this "kingdom of the snow queen" are filled with liquid hydrocarbons - a mixture of methane, ethane, propane and butane.
A river on Titan, similar to the Nile.
Scientists have repeatedly stressed: the external resemblance of Titan to Earth is amazing. Indeed, in addition to continents, seas, rivers and lakes, the moon of Saturn has an atmosphere, clouds, fog. The weather is changing there. And the fluid cycle is similar to that of the earth. On Titan, molecules have been discovered that resemble amino acids, from which proteins of terrestrial organisms are built. But is there life on Titan?
Biologists answer evasively: we do not yet know creatures capable of metabolism at temperatures of minus 180 degrees Celsius.
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There are no others
Titan is the largest moon of Saturn and the second largest in the solar system. More than him, only Ganymede - the satellite of Jupiter.
Titan's atmosphere is visible through terrestrial telescopes.
The diameter of Titan is 5152 kilometers. It is half the size of the moon and almost twice as heavy. Titan is larger than Mercury - a full-fledged planet in the solar system.
Titan is the only satellite in the solar system that has a dense atmosphere and liquid on its surface.
VLADIMIR LAGOVSKY