One of the popular and the most scrutinized moon of Saturn, Titan, has once again got into limelight. After piercing-in the moon’s thick gaseous blanket, the space scientists are able to gather some key facts about Titan.
Titan is in fact the largest moon of Saturn and in it’s wide expanses it withholds some gigantic dunes and waterless topography. Scientists opine that this may be the real life glance into the Earth’s future.
In an interview with SPACE.com, Jonathan Lunine, Cassini-Huygens interdisciplinary scientist at the University of Arizona, commented that –
Titan may be very different from Earth today, but maybe not Earth tomorrow.
Huygens’ probe and experimental researches have widened the horizons of Space explorations relating to the Saturn’s gigantic moon, Titan. Before his probes and calculations “Titan” was infact just another moon to be discovered and explored. Huygens’ thesis was conducted under the joint venture by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.
The Cassini Spacecraft was of great help during this Space Expedition, Huygens spent approximately two and a half hours exploring the terrains of Titan, and he simultaneously uploaded his Titan-related information back to his space ship. He infact, made a dedicated link, for about seventy minutes, with Cassini space ship that enabled the space scientists to gather his valuable information.
Huygens interdisciplinary scientist at the Laboratory of Environmental Physics and Chemistry in Paris, Francois Raulin, opined that –
Even though we have only four hours of data, it is so rich that after two years of work we have yet to retrieve all the information it contains.
Sir Jonathan Lunine said –
A number of instruments aboard Huygens simply require quite a lot of calibration and crosschecking to get a sensible result.
The Stereoscopic images from Huygens probes revealed some breathtaking views of craggy and rocky terrains towards the north of the base site. According to Huygens, the rough topography seemed so amazing in amidst of the bright highlands. He noticed ridges that rose up to a span of five hundred to six hundred-fifty feet. According to his experimental probes, these may be some drainage channels that were cut by rainwater precipitations falling as liquid methane. An in-depth review may be seen in – “Planetary and Space Science” magazine.
Jonathan Lunine also cleared out some facts in this regard –
Rains on deserts on Earth can take be spaced by months to years, but on Titan we’re talking about hundreds, maybe thousands, of years between episodes of major rainfall that comes down perhaps violently. Since Titan is so much farther from the sun than Earth is, it takes longer for solar energy to evaporate methane and build it up in the atmosphere enough to generate storms.
Just like water on Earth traverses from our troposphere to the surface and back again, methane in Titan’s surface follows the same cycle. Lunine commented that –
In some ways, the best analog for an Earth-like planet we have, as compared to Mars, which has too tenuous an atmosphere, or Venus, which has just the opposite. Essentially all the processes we see in Titan are in some sense connected with methane, just as processes on Earth are in some sense involved with water.
Before Huygens’ discovery, space scientists and researchers were of the view that Titan must be having a vast expanse of it’s surface covered with liquid methane and liquid ethane. They are now content to know the exact co-ordinates and topographical information regarding smog on Saturn’s gigantic moon.
They have found sugar-sized hydrocarbon grains on the Titan’s surface, which comprise of maximum part of the dunes and ridges near the moon’s equator. They expand up to some sixty miles across the moon’s topography, giving birth to some recurrent flash flooding. Scientists are also not ruling out the fact that the lakes and water bodies must be confined towards the moon’s poles.
He made some important facts cleared out too –
There’s a sense here of a desert world. Not in terms of being hot-Titan is very cold-but in terms of being very dry. Titan lacks oceans, but someday Earth will, too, as the sun increases in brightness, boiling the oceans away and leaving Earth a desert planet.
Space scientists are still not able to uncover some ambiguity relating to the liquid that sliced the moon’s surfaces, like the impeccably crafted dunes and ridges. Space researchers are able to gather some information through Radio waves (Huygens’ thesis) that may throw some light on the liquid that may be confined near the moon’s core. The Permittivity, Waves and Altimetry (PWA) sensor, that was incorporated in this technique, identified some extremely low frequency, ELF, Radio waves that may be a breakthrough in this discovery.
Scientists propound that if these waves are not attenuation and Noise generated by the instrument, then they may be looking at some amazing discoveries down below Titan’s surface! There Engineers have also ruled out the possibility regarding the instrument’s malfunctioning and attenuation problems.
Fernando Simões, a member of the PWA team opined that –
It might be generated by an interaction with Saturn’s magnetosphere or related to Titan’s intrinsic fields. Titan is proving to be an intriguing environment.
I am certainly of the opinion that Space Scientists would definitely unravel this mystery; the human race may surely look forward to a perfect evolution for themselves.
Via: Usatoday
