"Magic Island" On Titan, Saturn's Moon..[ 4147 ]

Scientists Spy "Magic Island" On Titan, Saturn's Strangest Moon

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"Η" Online 23/6/14, 14:19

• Μυστήριο με το «μαγικό νησί» στον Τιτάνα

As if Titan , the Saturnian moon with mountains, dunes, rivers and lakes made of flammable hydrocarbons, wasn’t weird enough, now researchers have spotted an “island” in the middle of its second-largest lake that seems to appear and disappear.

Mysterious island has been spotted.

Rather than an island of magic or any other sort, the feature identified using data from the Cassini spacecraft is more likely some indication of weather whipping up on the distant orb. 
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In the time that astronomers have been able to spy on Titan close-up it’s mostly been winter or spring in the northern part of the moon where the mysterious island has been spotted. But now summer appears to finally be coming after several Earth years, and perhaps bringing winds causing waves that appear as an island in images.
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Other possibilities proposed by the authors of a paper on the findings published Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience include sunken solids in the lake becoming buoyant thanks to the onset of warmer temperatures, or gases from the sea floor rising to the surface as bubbles.

Cassini image of Epimetheus and Titan, with the rings of Saturn in the foreground. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Likely, several different processes – such as wind, rain and tides – might affect the methane and ethane lakes on Titan. We want to see the similarities and differences from geological processes that occur here on Earth,” said Jason Hofgartner, a Cornell graduate student and the paper’s lead author. “Ultimately, it will help us to understand better our own liquid environments here on the Earth.”