If You Think Winters Are Crazy Here, Check Out Seasons For Saturn's Moon Titan
Thursday, November 29, 2012 - 04:40
in Astronomy & Space
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has been orbiting Saturn since 2004 so it has seen a lot - but it recently saw something that has not happened since 1997. Seasonal atmospheric circulation direction changes on Titan, technically only a moon but bigger than the planet Mercury, happen only once every 15 years and are never observable from Earth. Titan is the only known moon to have a significant atmosphere and is one of only four terrestrial atmospheres in our Solar System - the others being Venus, Mars and obviously Earth. Since Titan's rotation axis is tilted similar to Earth, it experiences seasons in a similar way, they just take a lot longer, because Saturn takes 29.5 Earth years to orbit the Sun. read more