Sunday, April 10, 2011

Ice Volcanoes On Titan? Maybe Not

In December, NASA researchers announced they had good evidence that ice volcanoes existed on Saturn's huge moon, Titan. Now, however, in a new study, other researchers say there is little evidence for that, and that the preponderance of the evidence suggests the surface features of Titan can be explained as the result of the action of wind, rain, and meteor impacts. An interesting point, however, is that the second group says the surface of Titan resembles the surface of Jupiter's moon, Callisto. Callisto may not have ice volcanoes, but neither does it have an atmosphere, so wind and rain were not factors there. So, the resemblance has to ignore the atmospheric sculptors. Whether Titan has ice volcanoes or not may have to wait for a future mission there.

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