NASA's Cassini spacecraft pinged the surface of Titan with microwaves, finding that some channels are deep, steep-sided canyons filled with liquid hydrocarbons. One such feature is Vid Flumina, the branching network of narrow lines in the upper-left quadr NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI

NASA just announced that it has discovered flooded canyons on Saturn's moon Titan, a world famous for vast seas and lakes as well as torrential downpours of methane and other hydrocarbons. The findings, recently published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, suggest complex and diverse geologic activity on the distant moon similar to what we have on Earth, despite the substantial differences between the two worlds.

Using data from the Cassini spacecraft, scientists confirmed that a canyon system near Ligeia Mare—the vast methane sea of northern Titan—ranges from 790 to 1,870 feet deep. The alien canyon is about half a mile wide in most places, with slopes steeper than 40 degrees. For comparison, the canyon network on Titan, known as Vid Flumina, is a little less than a third of the depth of the Grand Canyon, though it is only a small fraction of the width.

What's more, the canyon system is filled with channels of flowing liquid from Titan's abundant hydrocarbon seas, lakes, and rains. The implication is that a similar geologic process to what we see on Earth—erosion driven by either changes in sea level or the uplifting of land around a river—is at work on Titan as well.

"Earth is warm and rocky, with rivers of water, while Titan is cold and icy, with rivers of methane. And yet it's remarkable that we find such similar features on both worlds," Alex Hayes, a Cassini radar team associate at Cornell University, said in a press release.

The new discovery was made by analyzing data taken by Cassini during a low flyover of Titan in May 2013. The craft's radar instrument was used to scan the canyons, revealing the extremely smooth surface of the methane liquid as well as the depth of the canyons, calculated from the radar signals bouncing off the edges and floors Vid Flumina.

The clock is ticking for the Cassini spacecraft, which will plunge headlong into Saturn around April 2017, so it seems high time we make a new plan to continue studying the tantalizing moons of Saturn.

Source: NASA/JPL

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io