The idea of a large sea on Saturn's moon Titan was all but ruled out after the Cassini mission found no evidence early in its mission.
But a new image shows what scientists think is a shoreline with bays and channels feeding liquid into a possible sea.
"This radar data is among the most telling evidence so far for a shoreline," said Steve Wall, radar deputy team leader from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
"This is the area where liquid or a wet surface has most likely been present, now or in the recent past," Wall said. "Titan probably has episodic periods of rainfall or massive seepages of liquid from the ground."
"We also see a network of channels that run across the bright terrain, indicating that fluids, probably liquid hydrocarbons, have flowed across this region," said Dr. Ellen Stofan, Cassini associate radar team member from Proxemy Research in Laytonsville, Md.
"It looks as though fluid flowed in these channels, cutting deeply into the icy crust of Titan," said Larry Soderblom with the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Ariz. "Some of the channels extend over 100 kilometers [60 miles]. Some of them may have been fed by springs, while others are more complicated networks that were likely filled by rainfall."
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