A massive
mountain range tipped with organic “paint” sprouts from the surface of Saturn’s moon Titan
in this view taken by the Cassini
spacecraft.
The range
of mountains, which are the tallest found on Titan to date, runs about 93 miles
(150 kilometers) long and 19 miles (30 kilometers) wide with peaks reaching
altitudes of nearly one mile (1.5 kilometers), Cassini researchers said.
The Cassini
spacecraft found the Titan-ic mountain range during an Oct. 25 flyby past the
Saturnian moon using its Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer to pierce the satellite’s shroud of
clouds. The find was presented at the annual fall meeting of the American
Geophysical Union in San Francisco, California this week.
If it were
found on Earth, Titan’s mountain range
would sit south of the equator. A closer look at the terrain yields not only
mountains, but dunes, a deposit of material that resembles volcanic flow and
mountain peaks coated in what appears to be a “snow” of methane or other
organic material.
“These
mountains are probably as hard as rock, made of icy materials and are coated
with different layers of organics,” Cassini interdisciplinary scientists Larry
Soderblom, of the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Arizona, said in a
statement. “There seem to be layers and layers of carious organic ‘paint’ on
top of each other on these mountain tops, almost like a painter laying the
background of a canvas.”
Researchers
believe Titan’s mountain range formed through upwelling spurred by tectonic
forces similar to the way mid-ocean ridges are formed on Earth. Shadows of
mountains can be seen in Cassini’s image along with a fan-shaped feature of the
potential volcanic flow remnant.
Bright
clouds, most likely of methane droplets, also float across the scene, though
researchers are still mystified as to their source in Titan’s southern
mid-latitudes.
-- Tariq Malik
Credit:
NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
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