Titan’s always been pretty exciting. This saturnian satellite is the second-largest moon in the solar system (bigger even than Mercury and Pluto), and the only moon to have a thick atmosphere, complete with weather patterns. Sure, the extremely cold temperatures mean the rain, clouds, and rivers are liquid methane (natural gas) and not water, but just like Earth’s weather, the forecast can be full of surprises.
Astronomers had thought the moon’s tropical desert regions were too dry to ever form clouds, but a paper in the August 13 issue of Nature proves just the opposite.
In “Storms in the tropics of Titan,” Emily Schaller and other astronomers describe a large system of storm clouds started by something like a cloud explosion in the mid-latitudes, setting off waves that triggered more clouds around much of the planet. The entire south pole quickly disappeared behind them, and bright, transient clouds went up all the way to the equator.
Exactly what started the initial clouds and explosion remains unknown, as do much of Titan’s weather patterns, because astronomers have been studying them only recently. With a titanian year being 30 Earth years long, fully understanding Titan’s weather now would be as difficult as fully understanding Earth’s after only 2 months of data.
Still, these recent storms may help explain how rivers and streambeds could form in such a dry region. Instead of having to speculate about possible liquids seeping up from the ground, it now seems more likely that uncommon but strong downpours may be the cause, just like in much of the American Southwest.
Reading stories like this, it’s hard for me to shake off the notion of Titan as a possible life-sustaining planet. It probably isn’t, however much fun that might be, but a thick atmosphere and flowing liquids on such a distant world seem about as close as we could get for some time.
Does Titan fascinate you, too? Do you think it’s neat that, apparently, the meteorological phenomena that help form the landscape here happen there, too? Or are you a Ganymede-lover for life?
Photo credit: A. Bouchez et al.