Judging By Its Funny Orbit, The Moon Titan May Have a Massive Ocean
Saturn's Moon Titan NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute Along with methane lakes and ice volcanoes, Titan's bizarre features could include a massive subsurface ocean similar to that of its cousin moon, Europa. In an interesting twist, this could be one explanation for what's been replenishing the Saturnian moon's methane - maybe it's not life, but a vast ocean of hydrocarbons that occasionally burps to the surface. By crunching data from the Cassini mission, scientists have determined Titan orbits Saturn in a similar manner to our own moon - it always presents the same face toward its host planet, and its axis is tilted by about 0.3 degrees. This suggests Titan is more dense at its surface than at its core. This does not make much sense, unless you consider that Titan might not be solid. Researchers at the Royal Observatory of Belgium in Brussels say the data work out if Titan has...