Saturn Moon Titan May Offer Look into Earth's Future

Recent discoveries on Saturn's moon, Titan, is revealing that it may not be so different from our world in the impending centuries to come. The moon is characterized by giant dunes and an oceanless surface, which may foreshadow Earth's desert future. Studies show that the moon is the closet analog to Earth that has ever been found.

According to Live Science, Jonathan Lunine, a Cassini-Huygens scientist at the University of Arizona, said that "Titan may be very different from Earth today, but maybe not Earth tomorrow."

Until recently, the surface of Titan was majorly unknown to scientists until the Huygens probe penetrated the hazy atmosphere in 2005. After seven years, the Cassini spacecraft carrying Huygens finally reached Titan, and detached from the spacecraft, parachuting down to Titan's surface, all the while transmitting four hours worth of valuable data. The mission was not only conducted by NASA, but also the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.

Francois Raulin, who is also a Cassini-Huygens scientist like Lunine, at the Laboratory of Environmental Physics and Chemistry in Paris states that this expedition was a goldmine of information, saying that "Even though we have only four hours of data, it is so rich that after two years of work we have yet to retrieve all the information it contains." This delay may stem from the calibrations and cross-checking of Huygens instruments to get credible results.

Periodic rain

Images shot from Huygens now show that Titan has extremely rugged terrain in the bright highlands north of the probe's landing site. This is characterized by enormous ridges of 500 to 650 feet high that flank channels at a 30 degree angle. Scientists draw conclude from this image that these may be drainage channels, very much like Earth's valleys, that are cut by liquid methane falling as rain as detailed by the Planetary and Space Science magazine.