Titan: Land of lakes—and drizzle
By Ron Cowen
A newly assembled mosaic of radar images of Saturn’s hydrocarbon-shrouded moon Titan, taken over the past 18 months by the Cassini spacecraft, shows what are probably hydrocarbon lakes and seas at the moon’s north pole. At least one of the lakes is larger than Lake Superior. In addition, radar images taken by Cassini during an Oct. 2 flyby show evidence of hydrocarbon lakes at the moon’s south pole.
Cassini’s radar has now studied 60 percent of the north polar region above 60° latitude. Lakes appear to occupy about 14 percent of the scanned area. Planetary scientists have long proposed that lakes could form because of methane and ethane raining down from the moon’s atmosphere. Cassini’s radar view of a small patch at the south pole shows three lakes, indicating that these features may be just as common there as at the north pole.