Earth-like land discovered on Saturn's moon Titan
Earth-like land discovered on Saturn's moon Titan
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Thursday, 20, Jul 2006 11:45
Geological features similar to those on Earth have been discovered on Saturn's moon Titan by Nasa scientists.
The moon is too far away for details to be captured by Earth-based and space-based telescopes, yet radar images from Nasa's Cassini spacecraft have enabled scientists to confirm the moon's features in what has been described as a "geologic goldmine".
"Surprisingly, this cold, faraway region has geological features remarkably like Earth," commented Dr Jonathan Lunine, Cassini interdisciplinary scientist at the University of Arizona, Tucson.
Xanadu, an Australia-sized, bright region on Saturn's moon Titan, has dark sand dunes, hills, valleys and land cut by river networks.
"Although Titan gets far less sunlight and is much smaller and colder than Earth, Xanadu is no longer just a mere bright spot, but a land where rivers flow down to a sunless sea," Dr Lunine added.
Rivers flow into darker areas, which are thought to be lakes, and there is a crater thought to be created by the impact of an asteroid or by water volcanism. The surface of Xanadu, which was first discovered by the Hubble telescope in 1994, is modified by winds, rain and the flow of liquids.
Steve Wall, the Cassini radar team's deputy leader at Nasa's jet propulsion laboratory, said: "In the 1980s, it took the shuttle imaging radar to discover subsurface rivers in the Sahara. Similarly, if it hadn't been for the Cassini radar, we would have missed all of this. We have a newly discovered continent to explore."
Cassini will view Titan again on July 22nd and during the next two years it will fly by the moon 29 times, 12 of which will use the radar.