NASA illustrates the reality of lakes on the moon of Saturn

For many years, NASA has adopted an old theory that explains the phenomenon of methane lakes on the surface of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, which is the only planetary object in our solar system other than Earth to have a liquid fixed on its surface.

According to Nature, this theory asserts that liquid methane dissolves rocks below, forming lakes similar to terrestrial karst lakes scattered in the city of Samara in the Chigouli Mountains of Russia.

This belief continued until an international NASA team led by Giuseppe Miter of Gi University of Annunzio made a new discovery after digitizing new images of the mission Cassini, result of the cooperation between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency, to send a probe to study Saturn, its system and its liquids. Natural and surrounding rings, managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

This information provided a new scenario that completely changes the old theory and reverses it, suggesting pockets of liquid nitrogen inside the titan's hot crust, which turns into an explosive gas that explodes inside the craters, then filled with liquid methane, which explains the appearance of smaller lakes near the North Pole. For Titan, such as Winnipeg Lacos, who appear in radar imagery with steep edges and high altitude.

It was difficult to explain the existence and composition of such edges with the ancient theory that the holes are due to the flow of fluids, which, according to the theory, are supposed to be short, flat and more smoothed.

But with the new theory, the gas explosion can be responsible for the production of these steep peaks under the effect of the force of the accumulated and ascending rocks.

A scientist explained that they could find no explanation for the presence of sharp edges and not soft edges corresponding to the edges of karst lakes, where the formation was more compatible with the blast nozzle, which promotes the formation of ridges by the material ejected from the hole, that is to say a completely different process. .