Lakes and Seas on Titan
Published on 14 Mar 2007 at 1:33 am.
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Filed under Astronomy, Exploration, Titan.
The Cassini probe, currently in orbit around Saturn, has obtained radar images of large lakes or seas of liquid near the north pole of Saturn’s largest moon Titan. It has long been suspected that there was liquid methane and ethane on Titan’s surface that evaporated replenishing Titan’s atmosphere. These images provide the best evidence to date. One can see bays, channels, and even islands!
There appear to be many lakes both small and large with the largest being about 39,000 square miles, which is larger than Lake Superior making it the size of a sea.
The surface temperature on Titan averages -300 degrees Fahrenheit or about 90 Kelvin, which is near the triple point of methane. This means that methane can exist in gaseous, liquid and solid form on Titan, much like water does here on Earth (except that water is less stinky).
Due to the low gravity of Titan (1/7 th the acceleration of gravity on Earth), waves on methane lakes would be extremely high (10 times higher than on Earth) and would travel very slowly (3 times more slowly).
How amazing it would be to stand on one of these shorelines with the planet Saturn hanging in the hazy orange sky!
Kevin Knuth
Albany NY
