Earthsky Interviews
Astronomers see liquid lakes on Saturn’s moon
03-07-2007 - Space
Since July of 2006, astronomers scrutinizing images from the Cassini spacecraft have contemplated possible lakes on Titan.
Titan is the largest moon of the planet Saturn. By early January 2007, astronomers were even more confident. There appear to be not just lakebeds, but actual lakes containing liquid on Saturn’s moon.
Images from the Cassini spacecraft – which has been in orbit around Saturn since 2004 – indicate that some 75 lakes lie near Titan’s north pole. The lakes range in size from 3 to 60 kilometers – about 2 to 40 miles. Astronomers say they see waves of liquid on these lakes, similar to water waves on Earth.
But Titan’s lakes don’t have liquid water. They can’t because Titan is so far from the sun that any water on its surface would be solid ice. Instead of having liquid water, Titan’s lakes are thought to be filled with methane in a liquid form.
But because Titan is so cold, its methane can also become liquid and even solid. It probably rains and snows methane on Titan, just as it rains and snows water here on Earth. So, that means Titan – Saturn’s moon – is the only world we know besides Earth to have liquid lakes.
Our thanks today to Research Corporation, a foundation for the advancement of science.
This is so cool. I’m wondering, considering Methane CH4 can go through all three phases regularly on Titan, and it is a carbon-based molecule. Would it be possible to support carbon-based lifeforms on Saturn? I see it doesn’t work perfectly analogous to Earth, since water (H20) is not carbon-based itself. Plus unless there is Oxygen to found life would have to be anaerobic.
Ironically, in the unlikely event there is intelligent life on Titan, it has probably concluded that there is no life on Earth—because our atmosphere contains oxygen, which to them would be a poison.
There is no oxygen in Titan’s air, but there is plenty of oxygen in Titan itself. It’s in the water (H2O) that makes up about half the satellite’s mass. But because Titan is so cold, this water is as hard as stone.
Intelligent life of Titan? How would it form? We have images with fairly good clarity and see no structures. Perhaps in Titan, but it could not exist in physical form so how could they be intelligent? perhaps in gasses form but this is too much. I don’t think I would spend a lot of tike comtemplating intelligent lefe on Titan. But that’s just me.