Posted on by Evan Gough

Titan May Have a Methane Crust 10 Km Thick

Color-composite image of Titan and Saturn. There are few confirmed craters on Titan, and the ones that have been spotted are much shallower than expected. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/SSI/J. Major

Saturn’s moon, Titan, is an anomaly among moons. No other moons have surface liquids, and aside from Earth, it’s the only other Solar System object with liquids on its surface. However, since Titan is so cold, the liquids are hydrocarbons, not water. Titan’s water is all frozen into a surface layer of ice.

New research suggests that under the surface, Titan is hiding another anomaly: a thick crust of methane.

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Posted on by Evan Gough

The Strange Swirls on the Lunar Surface are Somehow Related to Topography

This is an image of the Reiner Gamma lunar swirl on the Moon, supplied by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Credits: NASA LRO WAC science team
This is an image of the Reiner Gamma lunar swirl on the Moon, supplied by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Credits: NASA LRO WAC science team

The Moon is the most studied object in space. But our nearest neighbour still holds a few mysteries. One of those mysteries is the lunar swirls. These strange serpentine features are brighter than their surroundings and are much younger. They’re not associated with any specific composition of lunar rock, and they appear to overlay other surface features like craters and ejecta.

Scientists have been puzzling over the swirls for decades, and with lunar outposts looming as a real possibility, understanding these swirls takes on new importance. Now a new study finds a link between lunar topography and the swirls.

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