Possible Cryovolcano Discovered on Titan

Rei writes "NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is reporting that the Cassini spacecraft has observed what appears to be a cryovolcano on Saturn's moon Titan. Given the absense of a global methane sea on Titan, the snail-shaped structure with what appears to be a caldera on top could explain how Titan's methane stays replenished. It could further explain the dry drainage channels discovered by the Huygens lander as being formed by heavy methane rainfall after eruptions."

Titan Climatology

[poopdeville]

Unlike terrestrial volcanic mounds, which are formed by the upwelling of lava, the hypothesis is that this feature is probably formed by plumes of frozen methane, forced from underground, which then slowly evaporate into methane gas. This would explain the abundance of methane in the Titan atmosphere. Titan is the only moon in the solar system to have a substantial atmosphere, a thick mix of nitrogen and methane. It is suspected to be undergoing chemical reactions similar to those that unfolded on Earth billions of years ago. That process eventually provided the conditions for life on our planet. Scientists have long pondered the source of Titan's methane, given that this chemical should have been degraded by the weak light from the Sun within a hundred million years or so.

Re:Titan Climatology

[RobotWisdom]

This makes no sense to me-- if it's frozen then it's solid, but a volcano has to be liquid. If I imagine a slushy liquid welling up and bursting thru a solid crust, is it convection due to density differences? And what's the heat source underground? Radioactivity? Tides???

Re:Titan Climatology

[mikael]

The force of gravity pulling the moon together causes pressure at the core (See Pascal's law [answers.com]) This pressure (thousands if not millions times Earth's atmospheric pressure), gets converted into heat, which then causes convection and volcanoes. Some heat is also generated by the moon rotating within Saturn's gravitational field.

NOT the most interesting of Saturn's moons

[filthy-raj]

I don't know why this hasn't received more coverage: Iapetus [enterprisemission.com]

Maybe you've all seen this already, so I don't know if anyone cares. Basically, Iapetus is not spherical! It is an enormous Buckmister-Fuller skeletal structure! It has also been observed from earth (with radio telescopes) to have a dull, uniform radar signature despite its obvious surface features - but consistent with its unusual, non-spherical geometry. ie: it's stealthy!

There is a 60 000 foot high 'wall' around its equator - perfectly around its equator. This is an impossibly coincidental geological feature. But again, it is empirically consistent with a gradual surface erosion which will reveal an underlying bucky-fuller skeleton.

What could very possibly be an alien artefact has been hushed up. NASA continually draws more attention to Titan, but it's the outermost Iapetus that is far more intriguing. If it wasn't so, how come NASA has scheduled an originally unplanned second flyby?! No, I am not wearing a tin-foil hat!

Don't be fooled by the "Titan smokescreen" (my term for it). Iapetus ('eye-app-e-tis') is the truly significant Cassini investigation.

Enjoy,

Raj

Re:Cryoclastic eruptions?

[EccentricAnomaly]

Triton, Neptune's large moon also has a substantial Nitrogen atmosphere, enough to entrain geyser plumes that move downwind. Ganymede has a thin atmosphere as well.

Titan's atmosphere is much, much thicker than the atmosphere on Triton, Ganymede, or Enceladus. These other moons have atmospheres but they are much thinner than even Mars' atmosphere. Hence the 'substantial' qualifier about Titan's atmosphere (which is thicker than Earth's).