Constant drizzle on Saturn's moon make it like Britain
by RobotGod.
The seaside weather on Titan, Saturn's largest moon, is as depressing as Britain's, day after day of constant drizzle, scientists have discovered. With one big difference. The rain on Titan is made of liquid methane.
reports that images captured by powerful telescopes in Hawaii and Chile have both shown for the first time nearly global cloud cover blanketing the higher regions of Titan.
The morning methane drizzle is widespread and constant, and was detected over the western foothills of Titan's major equatorial continent, Xanadu.
Professor Imke de Pater, from the University of California at Berkeley, one of the astronomers who made the observations, said: "Titan's topography could be causing this drizzle. The rain could be caused by processes similar to those on Earth - moisture-laden clouds pushed up-slope by winds condense to form a coastal rain."
Titan is larger than the planet Mercury, and is the only moon in the Solar System that has a thick atmosphere.
They believe the moon is covered in a hydrocarbon haze extending to a height of at least 500 kilometres. Also, due to its incredibly cold surface temperature, minus 183 centigrade, hydrocarbon chemicals such as methane and ethane, can exist there as liquids and solids. On Earth they are explosive gases.
We continue to learn new facts about all of the heavenly bodies. One day we may even learn firsthand on location.
Constant drizzle on Saturn's moon make it like Britain
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