SaturnS Moon Titan Reveals Earth-Like Landscape Shaped by Hydrocarbon Dissolution
Pasadena, CA – New research suggests Saturn‘s moon Titan harbors landscapes strikingly similar to those found on Earth, featuring lakes and seas sculpted not by water, but by liquid hydrocarbons. A team led by Thomas Cornet of the European Space Agency (ESA) has determined that the moon’s unique basins are likely formed through a process analogous to karst landforms on Earth – where groundwater dissolves soluble rocks like limestone.
The findings, published in the journal of geophysical Research: Planets, stem from analysis of data collected by NASA’s Cassini-Huygens mission.Cassini revealed two types of basins around Titan’s poles filled with liquid methane and ethane, including a vast, interconnected ocean and smaller lakes with steep walls. Some basins even appeared empty, suggesting a seasonal cycle linked to Saturn and Titan’s 30-year orbit.
Unlike Earth’s river-fed lakes, Titan’s lakes appear to be filled by methane rain or underground fluids, and can dry and refill with the seasons. the mystery lay in how these basins initially formed.Cornet’s team theorizes that liquid hydrocarbons dissolve the moon’s solid organic surface material, creating depressions over millions of years.
calculations estimate it would take approximately 50 million years to form a 100-metre-deep depression at Titan’s poles - a timeframe consistent with the moon’s relatively young surface. The dissolution process on Titan is roughly 30 times slower than on Earth due to its longer year and infrequent rainfall, occurring primarily during Titan’s summer.
“However, we believe dissolution is a major factor shaping the landscape on Titan and may be the cause of the formation of lakes there,” Cornet explained.
Basin formation in drier,low-latitude regions is estimated to take up to 375 million years,aligning with the observed lack of depressions in those areas. These calculations correlate with the estimated age of Titan’s surface, around a billion years old.
“By comparing features on Titan with examples on Earth and performing simple calculations,we discovered similar landscape-forming processes,even tho they occur under very different chemical and climatic conditions,” said Nicolas Altobelli,Cassini project scientist at ESA.
The Cassini-Huygens mission was a collaborative effort between NASA, ESA, and the Italian Space agency.
