The spacecraft has proven invaluable to studying Saturn's moons

Dec 13, 2013 08:20 GMT  ·  By

Officials at NASA are proud to announce that the Cassini spacecraft was able to produce a very detailed multi-image mosaic view of a particularly interesting area in the northern hemisphere of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. This region is filled with lakes and sea that are different from our own. 

Titan is the likeliest place in the solar system to find life, astrobiologists say. This object is the only one outside Earth that can support liquids on its surface, and which features a thick atmosphere capable of hosting chemical cycles similar to the water cycle on our own planet.

The main thing separating Titan from Earth in term of habitability is the fact that the Saturnine moon is covered in liquid hydrocarbons, including methane and ethane, whereas our world is covered in water. The presence of liquid water on Titan would be impossible at 93.7 Kelvin (−179.5 °C or -291.1 °F).

During a series of recent flybys of the moon, the Cassini spacecraft was able to use its onboard radar instrument to collect a series of images of the northern hemisphere of Titan, where most of the liquid hydrocarbon lakes and seas are concentrated.

According with scientists from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), who manage the Cassini mission, the new mosaic image includes all the major lakes in the northern hemisphere, as well as all the seas. For some of the areas, the probe already had images from different angles, collected during previous flybys.

This was the case for the two largest seas on Titan, called Kraken Mare and Ligeia Mare. “Learning about surface features like lakes and seas helps us to understand how Titan's liquids, solids and gases interact to make it so Earth-like,” explains JPL acting radar team leader, Steve Wall.

“While these two worlds aren't exactly the same, it shows us more and more Earth-like processes as we get new views,” the expert goes on to say. The new view enabled researchers to determine that Kraken Mare is much larger than previously thought, and also more complex.

Interestingly, the area Cassini focused on during this study holds 97 percent of all liquid hydrocarbons on Titan. The region its just 900 by 1,800 kilometers (600 by 1,100 miles) in area, and scientists still puzzle as to why hydrocarbons occur liquidly only here.

“Scientists have been wondering why Titan's lakes are where they are. These images show us that the bedrock and geology must be creating a particularly inviting environment for lakes in this box,” adds United States Geological Survey Cassini radar team member, Randolph Kirk.

“We think it may be something like the formation of the prehistoric lake called Lake Lahontan near Lake Tahoe in Nevada and California, where deformation of the crust created fissures that could be filled up with liquid,” he concludes.