The roar of the waves might be Titan’s soundtrack

The massive bodies of liquid methane and ethane that surround the surface of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, are likely riddled with waves that erode coastlines, sculpting the striking shapes of rivers and lakes that can be found on this strange moon, a new study shows. world.

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States confirm in a study recently published in the journal Science Advances that the huge amount of… hydrocarbon seas of titan, One of Saturn’s moons, it presents intense waves that shape its coasts and create unusual shapes for these masses of liquid methane and ethane.

Since the discovery of Titan by Christian Huygens in 1655, the surface of this moon has remained hidden, adding to the mystery, due to the dense and hazy atmosphere that surrounds it. However, when Gerard Kuiper discovered methane in its spectrum in 1944 and sent the Cassini probe into Saturn’s orbit in the early 2000s, we began to learn more about the moon’s surface, such as what it represented. Vast shimmering lakes of liquid hydrocarbon.

Waves generated by the wind

Now, specialists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have studied Titan’s coasts and shown through simulations that the moon’s large seas may have been… They are formed by wavesproduced by the movement of the wind.

according to press releaseUntil today, indirect and contradictory signals of wave-related activity have relied on distant images of Titan’s surface. In the new study, American researchers collected Models of landscape evolution With measurements of the shape of the coast on Earth.

In this way, they were able to describe how different coastal erosion mechanisms affect coastal morphology. Applying this framework to Titan, they revealed that the coastlines of the Moon’s seas are most consistent with… Landscapes that were flooded and then eroded by waves, Rather than a uniform corrosion process.

Rough seas

according to condition Published in Science Alerta Titan is the only known body in the solar system without taking into account the presence of massive liquid deposits on the Earth’s surface. Scientists seek to determine whether the seas Stormy and dynamic Or, on the contrary, they are always stationary and do not present any significant movement.

This could say a lot about the satellite’s properties, and even give new clues about its possible existence a form of Extraterrestrial life, Maybe of the microbial kind, on this strange, huge moon.

reference

Signs of wave erosion on the coast of Titan. Rose F. Palermo et al. Scientific Progress (2024). doi:https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adn4192