Waves of methane are crashing on the coasts of Saturn's bizarre moon Titan

Waves of methane are crashing on the coasts of Saturn's bizarre moon Titan - Printable Version

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Waves of methane are crashing on the coasts of Saturn's bizarre moon Titan - C C - Jun 20, 2024

https://gizmodo.com/saturn-moon-titan-methane-ethane-waves-sculpting-shore-1851547416

INTRO: In 2006, a NASA spacecraft flew by Saturn’s largest moon and found evidence of large bodies of liquid on the surface of the bizarre world. The shocking discovery meant that Titan’s landscape is eerily similar to that of Earth’s; the two worlds are the only ones known to have rivers, lakes, and seas on the surface.

Titan’s shoreline, however, is not as inviting as ours. Instead of water, the fluid that runs across Titan is an unholy mixture of methane, ethane, and other hydrocarbons. If that doesn’t sound hardcore enough, a new study suggests that waves of the greenhouse gases could be crashing on the moon’s coastlines, shaping its wet landscape.

A team of geologists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology sought to solve the mystery of Titan’s shorelines, and whether waves eroded the moon’s coasts into their current shape. Using computer models, the researchers simulated the different types of erosion that could have produced the shorelines shown in images captured by the Cassini mission nearly 20 years ago.

“If we could stand at the edge of one of Titan’s seas, we might see waves of liquid methane and ethane lapping on the shore and crashing on the coasts during storms. And they would be capable of eroding the material that the coast is made of,” Taylor Perron, a professor at MIT and co-author of the study, said in an emailed statement. The findings are published in the journal Science Advances... (MORE - details)

Huygens: Titan Descent Movie ... https://youtu.be/HtYDPj6eFLc

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/HtYDPj6eFLc

RE: Waves of methane are crashing on the coasts of Saturn's bizarre moon Titan - Magical Realist - Jun 23, 2024