Explanation:
What does the surface of Titan look like?
Thick clouds have always made
Saturn's largest moon so mysterious that
seemingly farfetched hypotheses like
methane rain and lakes have been seriously considered.
Later this week, the Cassini spacecraft orbiting
Saturn
is scheduled to release its
probe named Huygens that will actually attempt to land on the shrouded moon in early January.
Sketched above is one educated guess of what
Huygens might find.
In the above depiction, orange
hydrocarbons
color a landscape covered with lakes and peaks of frozen
methane and
ammonia.
For illustration purposes, the
Huygens probe is drawn parachuting down with an oversized
Cassini spacecraft orbiting above.
Saturn, likely occluded by the
clouds,
is depicted looming in the distance.
What will Huygens really find?
Are the building blocks of
life frozen onto the surface of Titan?
Will the truth be stranger than we imagined?
News: APOD editor to speak in January in New York
