Cassini Spies a Possible ‘Oasis’ on Titan

From a JPL press release: New data from the Cassini spacecraft shows enduring methane lakes in the equatorial regions on Saturn’s moon Titan. Previous models of the frigid liquids on Titan’s surface showed standing bodies of liquid would only exist at the poles, but one of the newly found “tropical” lakes appears to be about [...]

Saturn’s rings lie in the distance as the Cassini spacecraft looks toward Titan and its dark region called Shangri-La, east of the landing site of the Huygens Probe. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science InstituteFrom a JPL press release:New data from the Cassini spacecraft shows enduring methane lakes in the equatorial regions on Saturn’s moon Titan. Previous models of the frigid liquids on Titan’s surface showed standing bodies of liquid would only exist at the poles, but one of the newly found “tropical” lakes appears to be about half the size of Utah’s Great Salt Lake, with a depth of at least 3 feet (1 meter).Where could the liquid for these lakes come from? “A likely supplier is an underground aquifer,” said Caitlin Griffith, the paper’s lead author and a Cassini team associate at the University of Arizona, Tucson. “In essence, Titan may have oases.” (...)Read ...