Unusual Changing Feature in Titan's Ligeia Mare

These three images, created from Cassini Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data, show the appearance and evolution of a mysterious feature in Ligeia Mare, one of the largest hydrocarbon seas on Saturn's moon Titan. The views, taken during three different Cassini flybys of Titan, show that this feature was not visible in earlier radar images of the same region and its appearance changed between 2013 and 2014.

In the images, the dark areas represent the sea, which is thought to be composed of mostly methane and ethane. Most of the bright areas represent land surface above or just beneath the water line. The mysterious bright feature appears off the coast below center in the middle and right images.

The mystery feature had not been seen in preceding SAR observations of the region from 2007 to 2009. After its first appearance in early July 2013, it was not visible in observations by Cassini's Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer, obtained later in July and in September 2013. Low-resolution SAR images obtained in October 2013 also failed to recover the feature.

The SAR observation from Cassini's August 21, 2014 Titan flyby shows that the feature was still visible, although its appearance changed during the 11 months since it was last observed. The feature seems to have changed in size between the images from 2013 and 2014 -- doubling from about 30 square miles (about 75 square kilometers) to about 60 square miles (about 160 square kilometers). Ongoing analyses of these data may eliminate some of the explanations previously put forward, or reveal new clues as to what is happening in Titan's seas.

The Cassini radar team is investigating possible origins for the feature, including surface waves, rising bubbles, floating solids, solids that are suspended just below the surface or perhaps something more exotic. Researchers suspect that the appearance of this feature could be related to changing seasons on Titan, as summer draws near in the moon's northern hemisphere. Monitoring such changes is a major goal for Cassini's current extended mission.

The upper half of the middle image uses data from the April 26, 2007 Titan flyby. That area did not receive SAR coverage during the July 10, 2013 encounter, so the earlier data was used to fill-in the scene.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI/Cornell

Titan Dunes

The moons of our Solar System are brimming with unusual landscapes. However, sometimes they look a little more familiar, as in this new radar image from the Cassini orbiter. The image shows dark streaks carved into dunes reminiscent of those we might find on a beach on Earth, or raked with flowing lines in a Japanese Zen garden — but this scene is actually taking place on Saturn’s moon Titan.

While our sand is composed of silicates, the ‘sand’ of these alien dunes is formed from grains of organic materials about the same size as particles of our beach sand. The small size and smoothness of these grains means that the flowing lines carved into the dunes show up as dark to the human eye.

These grains are shunted around by winds shifting over the moon’s surface. These winds aren’t particularly fast — only moving at around 1 m/s — but they blow in opposing directions throughout the year, causing Titan’s ‘sand’ to pile up in certain places over time.

Titan seems to be full of features and phenomena that are quite familiar to those found on Earth. Since Cassini arrived in the Saturn system in 2004, and dropped off ESA’s Huygens probe in 2005, scientists have been studying the similarities between Titan and Earth by exploring sand dunes, channels and lakes of liquid ethane and methane scattered across its surface.

While previous images have spotted these eerily familiar patterns on Titan’s dunes, this new image shows them in greater detail. The image was obtained by Cassini’s Titan radar mapper on 10 July 2013, by a team led by Steve Wall at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, USA. The horizontal seam near the center is an artifact of radar image data processing.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Titan - Extraterrestrial Land of Lakes

This colorized flyover movie from NASA's Cassini mission shows the two largest seas on Saturn's moon Titan and nearby lakes. Titan is the only world in our solar system other than Earth that has stable liquid on its surface. The liquid in Titan's lakes and seas is mostly methane and ethane.

The flight path starts at Titan's largest sea, Kraken Mare (about 680 miles or 1,100 kilometers long), and passes over the second largest sea, Ligeia Mare. Titan seas are named after sea monsters in world mythology. Then, there is an area with no topographical data and the flight path crosses an area with smaller lakes.

Lakes in this area are about 30 miles (50 kilometers) across or less.

Data for the movie was obtained by Cassini's radar instrument from 2004 to 2013. Heights of features were exaggerated 10 times. In this color scheme, liquids appear blue and black. Land areas appear yellow to white. A haze was added to simulate the Titan atmosphere.

Straight lines in the images are artifacts of how Cassini obtained the data.

The topographic mapping of Titan using stereo radar images was performed by the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Arizona. The animation was created at JPL.

Video credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI/USGS

Note: For more information, see PIA17655: Titan's North and NASA's Cassini Spacecraft Reveals Clues About Saturn Moon

The Missing Waves of Titan

One of the most shocking discoveries of the past 10 years is how much the landscape of Saturn's moon Titan resembles Earth. Like our own blue planet, the surface of Titan is dotted with lakes and seas; it has river channels, islands, mud, rain clouds and maybe even rainbows. The giant moon is undeniably wet.

The "water" on Titan is not, however, H2O. With a surface temperature dipping 290 degrees F below zero, Titan is far too cold for liquid water. Instead, researchers believe the fluid that sculpts Titan is an unknown mixture of methane, ethane, and other hard-to-freeze hydrocarbons.

The idea that Titan is a wet world with its own alien waters is widely accepted by planetary scientists. Nothing else can account for the observations: NASA's Cassini spacecraft has flown by Titan more than 90 times since 2004, pinging the Moon with radar and mapping its lakes and seas. ESA's Huygens probe parachuted to the surface of Titan in 2005, descending through humid clouds and actually landing in moist soil.

Yet something has been bothering Alex Hayes, a planetary scientist on the Cassini radar team at Cornell University.

If Titan is really so wet, he wonders, "Where are all the waves?"

Here on Earth, bodies of water are rarely still. Breezes blowing across the surface cause waves to ripple and break; raindrops striking sea surfaces also provide some roughness. Yet on Titan, the lakes are eerily smooth, with no discernible wave action down to the millimeter scale, according to radar data from Cassini.

"We know there is wind on Titan," says Hayes. "The moon's magnificent sand dunes [prove] it."

Add to that the low gravity of Titan—only 1/7th that of Earth—which offers so little resistance to wave motion, and you have a real puzzle.

Researchers have toyed with several explanations. Perhaps the lakes are frozen. Hayes thinks that is unlikely, however, "because we see evidence of rainfall and surface temperatures well above the melting point of methane." Or maybe the lakes are covered with a tar-like substance that damps wave motion. "We can't yet rule that out," he adds.

The answer might be found in the results of a study Hayes and colleagues published in the July 2013 online edition of the journal Icarus. Taking into account the gravity of Titan, the low viscosity of liquid hydrocarbons, the density of Titan's atmosphere, and other factors, they calculated how fast wind on Titan would have to blow to stir up waves: A walking-pace breeze of only 1 to 2 mph should do the trick.

This suggests a third possibility: the winds just haven’t been blowing hard enough. Since Cassini reached Saturn in 2004, Titan’s northern hemisphere (where most of the lakes are located) has been locked in the grip of winter. Cold heavy air barely stirs, and seldom reaches the threshold for wave-making.

But now the seasons are changing. In August 2009 the sun crossed Titan’s equator heading north. Summer is coming, bringing light, heat and wind to Titan's lake country.

"According to [climate models], winds will pick up as we approach the solstice in 2017 and should be strong enough for waves," he says.

If waves appear, Cassini should be able to detect them. Radar reflections from wavy lake surfaces can tell researchers a great deal. Wave dimensions, for instance, may reveal the viscosity of the underlying fluid and, thus, its chemical composition. Also, wave speeds would track the speed of the overlying winds, providing an independent check of Titan climate models.

Hayes is excited about "bringing oceanography to another world. All we need now," he says, "are some rough seas."

Video credit: NASA

Ligeia Mare

Ligeia Mare, shown here in a false-color image from the international Cassini mission, is the second largest known body of liquid on Saturn's moon Titan, and it is one of the many seas and lakes that bejewel Titan's north polar region. It measures roughly 420 km x 350 km, and its shorelines extend for over 3,000 km. It is filled with liquid hydrocarbons, such as ethane and methane. Cassini has yet to observe waves on Ligeia Mare, and will look again during its next encounter on May 23, 2013.

The mosaic shown here is composed from synthetic aperture radar images from flybys between February 2006 and April 2007.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI/Cornell

Note: For more information, see Forecast for Titan: Wild Weather Could be Ahead.

Titan's Ligeia Mare and Other Lakes

These images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft show one of the large seas and a bounty of smaller lakes on Saturn's moon Titan. Scientists saw these small lakes in data obtained by both Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer (left) and radar instrument (right).

Ligeia Mare, about 50,000 square miles (125,000 square kilometers) in area, is the large lake near the bottom of both images. Three new lakes of about 100 to 300 square miles (a few hundreds of square kilometers) identified first in the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer images are labeled in the annotated version as Freeman (VimsNN1), Cardiel (VimsNN2) and VimsNN4. The new lakes can be seen at the top left and middle right. The small lake Towada first seen in radar images was also seen in this VIMS investigation (VimsNN3) and can be seen in the middle right.

The images that went into the VIMS mosaic were taken in June 2010. The images that make up the radar mosaic were taken in April 2007. The small lakes remained relatively consistent between 2007 and 2010.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

Note: For more information, see Titan's Methane: Going, Going, Soon to Be Gone?

Small Lakes on Titan

Three new small lakes, 100 to 300 square miles (a few hundreds of square kilometers) in surface area, have been identified on Saturn's moon Titan in data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. In the image from Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer at the bottom part of the image, Freeman, Cardiel and a lake currently designated as VIMSNN4 join the cast of small lakes already discovered by Cassini's radar. Towada (VIMSNN3) is a lake originally seen in radar data that was also seen in the VIMS data. Radar views of some of the lakes are shown as the insets.

Studies of the surface areas of these small lakes can yield big results in determining the evolution of liquid bodies on Titan, and shed light on the past and future of methane in shaping Titan's environment.

The VIMS images were taken in 2010. The radar images were taken in 2007.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

Note: For more information, see Titan's Methane: Going, Going, Soon to Be Gone?

Wetlands on Titan

A dense network of small rivers or swampy areas appears to connect some of the seas on Saturn's moon Titan, as seen in this comparison of data of the same area from two instruments on NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Images from the radar instrument are on the left and images from the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIMS) are on the right.

At approximately 50,000 square miles (about 125,000 square kilometers), Ligeia Mare (middle of the images) is larger than any North American lake. The labels K1, K2, and K3 in the radar mosaic (a) refer to different parts of Kraken Mare that appear interconnected in the VIMS mosaic (b).

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

Note: For more information, see Titan's Methane: Going, Going, Soon to Be Gone?

Sinlap and Soi Craters

This set of images from the radar instrument on NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows a relatively "fresh" crater called Sinlap (left) and an extremely degraded crater called Soi (right). Sinlap has a depth-to-diameter ratio close to what we see on Jupiter's moon Ganymede. Soi has a shallow depth compared to similar craters on Ganymede. These craters are both about 50 miles (80 kilometers) in diameter.

The Sinlap image was taken by Cassini's radar instrument on February 15, 2005. The Soi image is a mosaic of two images from May 21, 2009 and July 22, 2006.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI/GSFC

Note: For more information, see Titan Gets a Dune 'Makeover'.

Possible Hydrocarbon Ice in Titan's Lakes

Lakes on Saturn's moon Titan reflect radio waves in varying ways in this image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Scientists think the variations in reflectivity, or brightness, have to do with the smoothness or texture of the surface. If a lake is fully liquid, it looks dark, but if it is only partially liquid, it looks brighter.

In this image taken from Titan's high northern latitudes on May 22, 2012, the lakes on the left are full of liquid hydrocarbons and the lakes on the top right are only partially filled, or represent saturated ground (i.e., a mudflat). The lakes in this image are each about 35 to 45 kilometers (22 to 30 miles) across, or about the size of Lake Tahoe on the California-Nevada border. Some of the differences in reflectivity could also be explained by the presence of floating hydrocarbon ice.

This image was obtained by Cassini's radar mapper at a scale of about 350 meters (1,100 feet) per pixel. It is presented in polar stereographic projection with a logarithmic stretch.

For perspective, a wider view of these lakes can be seen in PIA16167.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI/Cornell

Note: For more information, see PIA16634: Floating Ice on Titan Lakes? and Cassini Suggests Icing on a Lake.

Dune Fields on Titan and Earth

Two different dune fields on Titan: Belet (top left) and Fensal (bottom left), as imaged by Cassini's radar. The image also shows two similar dune fields on Earth in Rub Al Khali, Saudi Arabia.

Fensal is at higher latitude and elevation than Belet and clearly shows thinner dunes with brighter and wider areas in between, suggesting less abundant dune material in this region.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI/ESA and USGS/ESA

Note: For more information, see Cassini's Radar Observes Titan's Tropical Dune Fields; also, PIA15225: Dune Patterns.

Southern Enceladus in Radar View

NASA's Cassini spacecraft obtained these views of the south polar area of Saturn's moon Enceladus in visible and near-visible (ultraviolet and infrared) light and synthetic-aperture radar (SAR). The region is south of 45 degrees South latitude. The SAR image, acquired November 6, 2011, is shown as an arc running from upper left to lower right, accented in light blue. Bright and dark edges of this arc are artifacts of the radar imaging process. The background image was taken with visible-light (PIA08342), with color added for emphasis (see below). Visible-light images, like we normally see in photographs, are mostly bright or dark depending on their target's chemical composition, while brightness in SAR images usually depends on how rough or smooth the surface is. The SAR swath is about 15 miles (25 kilometers) wide and is centered at 655 South latitude, 295 West longitude.

The color in the background image is used to separate different materials using ultraviolet, visible and infrared images taken from 2004 to 2009 (see PIA13423). Blue colors represent icy material that originated in the plumes and fell back to the surface. Since these images were taken using illumination by sunlight, they sense ice particles and other roughness in the wavelength range of 50 to 100 microns. The SAR swath uses microwaves 2 centimeters long in wavelength to "light" the surface, so it senses roughness in that range. In addition, the SAR may be seeing that roughness slightly under the surface.

From east-to-west (bottom right to top left), the SAR image crosses near-south-polar terrain close to many of the active sulci, which are long fissures. Throughout the scene, the surface is covered with a network of linear and near-linear grooves and fractures, interpreted to be due to extension, or pulling apart, of Enceladus' crust. These are dominated by a set of larger grooves, about a mile (kilometer) wide, running many tens of miles (kilometers) in length, and smaller grooves about 700 feet (200 meters) wide. A v-shaped region near the lower (eastern) end of the SAR swath, bounded by large faults, appears brighter to radar than most other areas, most likely the result of a rougher surface in the 2-centimeter-wavelength scale. Within, the terrain appears to be slightly more broken up, possibly the result of more dynamic tectonic forces disrupting the surface. The few-miles-wide (few-kilometers-wide) fault bounding the westernmost edge (top) edge of this area looks similar to the four active sulci that run parallel to it, suggesting that it is formed by the same processes; this feature is discussed in PIA15171. A similar fault about 1 to 2 miles (2 to 3 kilometers) wide runs along the center of much of the SAR swath for at least 47 miles (75 kilometers). Farther west still, the swath crosses another v-shaped, SAR-bright region bounded by large faults, including part of the Mosul Sulci system (see PIA15170). Once again, the network of fractures within the bright region appear to be rougher and more broken up. It also coincides with unusually colored terrain surrounding the active sulci (seen in the background images), and so possibly indicates a relatively young or active surface.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Note: For other images in this series, see PIA15170: Enceladus Sparkle and PIA15171: Groovy Enceladus.

New Crater on Titan

Impact craters are rare on Titan. Until recently only seven had been identified definitely on Titan, so it was exciting when Cassini's Titan Radar Mapper imaged an eighth impact crater on June 21, 2011. This newly discovered crater is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) in diameter and is surrounded by a continuous blanket of ejecta (material thrown out from the crater) that appears bright to radar and extends roughly 10 to 12 miles (15 to 20 kilometers) beyond the rim. With its well-preserved ejecta and steep inward-facing walls, the new crater resembles the two other freshest known craters on Titan: Sinlap, seen in the radar image of February 2005 (PIA07368), and Ksa, seen in September 2006 (PIA08737) and imaged again in this latest flyby. One difference is that Sinlap and the new crater seem to have flat, largely featureless floors, but Ksa has a bright central peak.

Dunes, visible as dark lines on the left of the image, have been swept toward the crater by the winds of Titan. These dunes have encroached very little onto the bright ejecta, compared to those on Ksa where more than a third of the ejecta blanket on its western edge is covered by dunes.

While Saturn's other moons have many thousands of craters, Titan has very few. One reason is that Titan's dense atmosphere burns up the smaller impacting bodies before they can reach the surface. The craters that do form are often hard to recognize or disappear entirely as they are eroded over time by geological processes such as the wind-driven motion of sand and, possibly, icy volcanism.

This synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) image, centered at 12 degrees north latitude and 45 degrees west longitude, measures 150 miles (242 kilometers) high by 160 miles (257 kilometers) wide, with resolution of about 350 meters per pixel; north is at the top, and the image is illuminated from the bottom. Incidence angle varies from 15 to 25 degrees.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Ksa Crater, Xanadu and Dunes on Titan

Three of Titan's major surface features-dunes, craters and the enigmatic Xanadu-appear in this radar image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The hazy bright area at the left that extends to the lower center of the image marks the northwest edge of Xanadu, a continent-sized feature centered near the moon's equator. At upper right is the crater Ksa, first seen by Cassini in 2006 (PIA09172). The dark lines running between these two features are linear dunes, similar to sand dunes on Earth in Egypt and Namibia.

The dune fields on Titan, Saturn's largest moon, nearly girdle the globe at latitudes from about 30 degrees north to 30 degrees south, with the notable exception of Xanadu. In this image, the dunes overlap Xanadu only slightly. They are also more widely separated and discontinuous at the boundary, a characteristic typical of dunes on Earth where the sand supply is limited. The dunes also either wind their way around or terminate at other, smaller features, including Ksa.

Cassini's Titan Radar Mapper acquired this synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) image, centered at 11 degrees north latitude and 74 degrees west longitude, on June 21, 2011. The image covers an area 350 kilometers (217 miles) high by 930 kilometers (578 miles) wide, with resolution of about 350 meters per pixel. North is at the top, and the image is illuminated from the top. Incidence angle varies from 15 to 30 degrees.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL

Titan's Sotra Facula

This movie is based on data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft and shows a flyover of an area of Saturn's moon Titan known as Sotra Facula. Scientists believe Sotra is the best case for an ice volcano -- or cryovolcano -- region on Titan.

The flyover shows two peaks more than 1,000 meters (3,000 feet) tall and multiple craters as deep as 1,500 meters (5,000 feet). It also shows finger-like flows. All of these are land features that indicate cryovolcanism. The 3-D topography comes from Cassini's radar instrument. Topography has been vertically exaggerated by a factor of 10. The false color in the initial frames shows different compositions of surface material as detected by Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer. In this color scheme, dunes tend to look relatively brown-blue. Blue suggests the presence of some exposed ice. Scientists think the bright areas have an organic coating that hides the ice and is different and lighter than the dunes. The finger-like flows appear bright yellowish-white, like the mountain and caldera. The second set of colors shows elevation, with blue being lowest and yellow and white being the highest. Dunes here appear blue because they tend to occupy low areas. The finger-like flows are harder to see in the elevation data, indicating that they are thin, maybe less than about 100 meters (300 feet) thick.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/USGS/University of Arizona

Notes: For a map showing Sotra Facula's location on Titan, see PIA13696: Global View of Sotra Facula, Titan. Also, this is Saturnology's 100th post!

Mountains near Adiri on Titan

This mosaic, made from radar images obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, shows parallel mountain chains on Saturn's moon Titan, near an equatorial region known as Adiri. This mosaic focuses on an area around 10 degrees south latitude and 145 degrees east longitude. The annotated version [above] shows topographic profiles obtained by the radar instrument, with red areas showing the highest elevation (in this image, 250 meters above the mean radius of Titan) and purple showing the lowest (in this image, 450 meters below the mean radius of Titan). That version also shows a grid for latitude and longitude.

Scientists believe the structures rose up because the lithosphere, the outermost layer of the surface, folded up during deformation of the outer water ice shell.

Cassini's radar instrument obtained the black-and-white image of the terrain on February 22, and October 28, 2005. In radar images, objects appear bright when they are tilted toward the spacecraft or have rough surfaces. The topographical data were derived from the same flybys.

For another view of this terrain, see PIA03566.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Note: For some other radar images of Titan's surface, see PIA13330: Mountains North of Aaru on Titan and PIA13331: Mountains on the Northwest Border of Xanadu, Titan.