Scientists have had any idea distant moon It experiences time like Earth, forming clouds that tingling its dug surface with rain.
If so it will do Titanium The only other world in the solar system that has this in common with our native planet. Researchers now have another idea that Titan, the largest of 274 famous Saturn moonsThere is a climate cycle similar to what is happening on Earth.
Catch: Instead of evaporating and filling the lakes and oceans of titanium with water, it is likely to shower the moon with cold, oily methane.
Using two powerful telescope – The Space Telescope James Web and the KECK II telescope in Hawaii – astronomers watch the clouds appear and then climb higher in the sky over Titan, which is about 880 million miles in spaceS For the first time, they saw clouds moving north, where most of the Lunar Lakes and Seas existed at the end of its summer.
The discovery of the cloud convection strengthens the theory that these superficial fluid bodies, comparable to the size of the large lakes in the United States, are filled by rain, perhaps as the summer storms work on the ground. Thehe Team appears in the magazine Natural astronomy.
“We were able to see clouds of methane that develop and change near the North Pole of Titan for several days in the region where large seas and lakes of methane were discovered by the Cassini spacecraft, says Konor Nixon, but NASA a scientific scientist and leading author of the newspaper, in statementS
See also: Nasa Rover captures for the first time Aurora by Mars Surface
Introducing dust storms of a distant lunar titan
Saturn’s most large moon, Titan, is brutally cold and wrapped in smog with yellowish. Credit: NASA / ESA / IPGP / LABEX Univets / University Paris Diderot Illustration
Titan is Strange worldAt -300 degrees Fahrenheit and wrapped in a smog with yellowish. Like Earth, the atmosphere is mostly nitrogen.
Scientists are interested in titanium because despite their brutally cold temperatures, it seems that there is an organic lifelong ingredients – The species that people know about at least. Whether the moon has any microbial aliens has become a top priority for the study, helping to stimulate $ 3.35 billion to NASA $ 3.35 billion DismissalS The mission was just transmitting its critical design review, cornerstone This means that engineers can start constructing the spacecraft. A helicopter is expected to visit the moon in the 2030s.
The new web observations indicate that in the summer in the northern hemisphere of titanium clouds can increase higher and can be fed by heat from Sun – Something like earth storms.
Scientists had seen this type of cloud activity before, but never north. This is key because it suggests that northern methane and ethane seas are part of a process that maintains the atmosphere of Titan. On the ground these chemicals are gases, but when freezing the titan they are liquid Gasoline on the ground.
The transmission of an artist on the spacecraft to the leading
Dragonfly’s mission is advanced to the scene when engineers can start constructing a helicopter -like spacecraft. Credit: NASA / John Hopkins Apl / Steve Gyuben Illustration
Using different types of light filters, the two telescopes helped astronomers determine how tall clouds they move. On the ground, the lowest part of heaven – troposphere – It goes up about 7.5 miles, but the same layer of titanium rises to 28 miles, thanks to the lower gravity of the moon.
Web found something else new: a tiny, fast moving molecule called methyl radical, in the atmosphere of Titan. This molecule is ephemeral, so its discovery shows that chemical reactions continue in the sky of the moon. Such molecules are related to the chemical origin of the life of the Earth.
“It is possible (methane) to be continuously delivered and discarded from the crust and interior for billions of years,” Nixon said. “If not, in the end everything will disappear, and Titan will become a mostly airless world of dust and dunes.”
Web and CEC Telescopes explore the moon of Saturn Titan
The two telescopes, Web and KEC II, helped astronomers determine how high clouds were moving. Credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STSCI / KECK Observatory
Although open -growing clouds suggest that it can rain on Titan, no rainfall is actually observed. The team is planning subsequent studies to see how the meteorological models change, especially in the period after the equinox this month.
Over time, methane in the air of titanium can disappear if it is not replaced in any way by the moon. If that happens, Titan may lose his atmosphere and become something closer to MarsS
“For the first time, we can see the chemical cake as it rises in the oven,” says co -author Stephanie Maylam in a statement, “instead of only the initial ingredients of flour and sugar, and then the final, ice cake.”