Lakes on Titan

The Cassini spacecraft, using its radar system, has discovered very strong evidence for hydrocarbon lakes on Titan. Dark patches, which resemble terrestrial lakes, seem to be sprinkled all over the high latitudes surrounding Titan’s north pole.

I grew up during the earliest years of space exploration.  This is probably the reason why I get so excited about what we are doing in the Solar System right now, even if only with robotic vehicles.

JPL.NASA.GOV: Multimedia:

when we took this radar pass back in July, very high up into the northern hemisphere, once we got into the region above about seven degrees north on Titan, there were just lakes everywhere. We detected a whole lot of lakes, in fact over 75 lakes, ranging in size from about a mile-and-a-half across to over 40 miles across, so these are quite a lot of lakes, and some of them quite substantial in size.

Jane Plat interviews Dr. Ellen Stofan, a member of the Cassini radar team.  They’ve discovered lakes on Titan, one of the moons of Saturn.  They aren’t filled with water.  Probably methane or ethane, but they are big and they probably have waves.

If you’re interested in space exploration, give the podcast a listen.