Using a visual and infrared mapping spectrometer and an imaging science subsystem onboard NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, scientists have mapped liquid methane and ethane lakes and seas that reside near the north pole of the Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.
This image of Titan, taken by Cassini spacecraft, reveals differences in the composition of surface materials around hydrocarbon lakes and seas on this largest moon of Saturn. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona / University of Idaho.
Besides Earth, Titan is the only other body in the Solar System that we know has stable liquid on its surface, though its lakes are made of liquid ethane and methane rather than liquid water.
While there is one large lake and a few smaller ones near the moon’s south pole, almost all of its lakes appear near the north pole.
“Titan’s northern lakes region is one of the most Earth-like and intriguing in the Solar System,” said Cassini project scientist Dr Linda Spilker from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
The new map is based on data obtained during flybys of Titan on July 10, July 26, and Sept. 12, 2013. It reveals differences in the composition of material around the lakes. It also suggests parts of the lakes may have evaporated and left behind the Titan equivalent of terrestrial salt flats. The evaporated material is thought to be organic chemicals originally from Titan’s haze particles that once dissolved in liquid methane.
In this map, Titan’s largest sea Kraken Mare can be seen spreading out with many tendrils on the upper right.
The big dark zone up and left of Kraken is Ligeia Mare, the second largest sea.
Below Ligeia is Punga Mare, the third largest Titan Sea. Numerous other smaller lakes dot the area.
The north pole of Titan is located in the geographic location just above the end of the ‘finger’ of Punga Mare.
“The view from Cassini’s visual and infrared mapping spectrometer gives us a holistic view of an area that we’d only seen in bits and pieces before and at a lower resolution,” said project scientist Dr Jason Barnes from the University of Idaho.
“It turns out that Titan’s north pole is even more interesting than we thought, with a complex interplay of liquids in lakes and seas and deposits left from the evaporation of past lakes and seas.”
