New research shows that giant bodies of liquid methane and ethane cover Titan’s surface, waves wash its shores, and lakes unique to the moon are exotic and dangerous. The discovery provides fascinating insights into Titan and how liquid bodies behave in a world very different from Earth.
“Based on our results, we can say that if Titan’s coastlines broke up, the waves are most likely to blame,” said Taylor Perron, a geologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Taylor Perron says “If we could stand on the edge of one of Titan’s oceans, we could see waves of liquid methane and ethane flowing ashore during storms and sinking onto the beach. It could destroy coastal material”.
Discovered by Christian Huygens in 1655, the surface of Titan is obscured by a thick and dangerous atmosphere that was officially discovered in 1944 when Gerard Kuiper discovered methane in its spectrum. It wasn’t until the early 2000s when the Cassini probe was launched into Saturn’s orbit. described in all the details is above Kronos. A detail that includes vast, shimmering pools of liquid hydrocarbons.
Since then, scientists have wondered what these bodies of methane and ethane are that cloud the Great Lakes of North America.
Aside from Earth, Titan is the only other solar system on Earth with a large reservoir of liquid water, and we love it. Why is the sea stormy and constantly moving like the earth’s ocean? Or calm and still, without much movement?
US Geological Survey geologist Rose Palermo says “Some people who try to look for evidence of waves don’t see anything and say, ‘This sea is glass smooth”.
To find out, Perron, Palermo and their colleagues created a complete model to try to reproduce the waterways and lakes seen in the images from Titan.
First, they looked at the Earth, running a model to determine how coastal erosion mechanisms build the shores of water bodies such as lakes and oceans. This provides a basis for using beach morphology to identify the various erosion processes that may be present around bodies of fluid.
They then applied this framework to Titan, looking at three different scenarios: one with no coastal erosion; second, driven by erosion waves; and third, erosion is a uniform process in which coastal material gradually dissolves or collapses under its own weight.
What matters is the distance over which wind can travel unhindered in the fluid and the energy can travel through the fluid. The farther the wind can travel, the more energy it transfers and the surface grows.
“Wave erosion is driven by wave height and angle,” Palermo said. “We use wave height as an approximation, because the bigger it is, the longer the distance between the wind and the waves.”
According to their simulation, three scenarios produced very different coastlines. The most similar to the real Titan is the crashing wave or beach version. Those with uniform erosion, resembling lakes on Earth, have disappeared by processes such as limestone melting.
Of course, this is not conclusive evidence. We won’t know if Titan has waves until we get there and take a closer look. There is a mission called Dragonfly in the works. It’s currently scheduled to arrive on Titan in 2034, so we’ll have to sit tight until then.
“Titan represents the problem of a completely untouched system,” said Palermo. “This could help us learn more about how beaches disappear without human intervention, and perhaps help us better manage our Earth’s coastlines in the future.” The research was published in Science Advances.
