Titan is the Saturn’s largest moon and is the second largest moon in our solar system. If it were not orbiting Saturn, Titan could be considered a planet as it is larger than Mercury. Titan is covered with a thick atmosphere that some consider to be similar to that of early Earth. Ti...
Because of its elliptical orbit around Saturn and its non-spherical mass distribution, Titan has longitudinal librations. Here we study the long-period librations of Titan and include deformation effects and the existence of a subsurface ocean. We take into account the fact that the orbit is not...
000 years. These are determined by how elongated Saturn’s orbit around the sun is – a measure called eccentricity – and the direction of its tilt as it orbits – a measure called precession. Both factors change over time because of the gravitational influence of other bodies in the solar ...
Titan, Saturn's largest moon, is the only extraterrestrial body known to support stable liquid on its surface, in the form of seas and lakes that dot the polar regions. Many indications suggest that the liquid should be composed of a mixture of N2, CH4 and C2H6. Recent RADAR observations ...
However, when the external pressure is around 1 kbar (10 000 atm), as it is in the deepest ocean trenches on Earth, these biochemical reactions start to become significantly affected - biochemical reactions that normally result in a very slight increase in volume are inhibited. For example, ...
The interaction between plasma in Saturn's magnetosphere and Titan's ionosphere is complex because of the high density of neutral particles in Titan's ionosphere, the variability of Saturn's magnetosphere, and the variation of solar zenith angle as Titan orbits around Saturn's magnetosphere. Modelin...
The entry of the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft into orbit around Saturn in July 2004 marked the start of a golden era in the exploration of Titan, Saturn's giant moon. During the Prime Mission (2004–2008), ground-breaking discoveries were made by the Cassini orbiter including the equatorial dun...
Saturn’s hazy Titan is now on the short list of moons that likely harbor a subsurface ocean of water, based on new findings from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. As Titan travels around Saturn during its 16-day elliptical orbits, it gets rhythmically squeezed by the gravitational pull of the gi...
°C). Evidence of a systematic shift of the moon's surface features (which took place between October 2005 and May 2007) suggests that the crust is decoupled from the interior – possibly by a liquid layer in between – as well as the way the gravity field varies as Titan orbits Saturn...
the insights gleaned from saturn's rings can be applied to disks all over the galaxy, including disks around stars that will eventually coalesce into planets, added linda spilker, cassini deputy project scientist at the jet propulsion laboratory. "saturn really is a wonderful, natural lab for ...