Data provided by NASA’s Cassini mission and ESA, which studies Saturn and some of its main moons, suggest that the subterranean ocean that houses the largest of them, Titan, would be as salty as our Dead Sea. The latter is so saline that few microorganisms survive in it.
The study of the gravity and topography of the satellite during the last ten years has allowed a team of researchers from different institutions to develop a model of it and better understand the structure of its icy outer layer, which is covered by organic molecules.
According to the magazine Icarus , the sea found in the subsoil would be composed of water and dissolved salts, such as potassium, sodium and sulfur; the mixture would result in a salinity equivalent to that of the saltiest seas on our planet.
Giuseppe Mitri, from the Laboratory of Planetology and Geodynamics of the University of Nantes, in France, who has coordinated the study, points out that “this finding has changed our perception of this ocean , understood as a possible refuge for life as we understand it, but the conditions could have been very different in the past ”.
The information collected by the Cassini probe suggests that the thickness of the ice crust of this moon varies from one place to another , which shows that the aforementioned ocean is probably slowly crystallizing and turning into ice. This would limit their ability to host life forms and the exchange of materials with the atmosphere.
Scientists also wonder to what extent this phenomenon affects the presence of methane in it and the way in which it is replenished with this compound, a hydrocarbon that constitutes 5% of Titan’s atmosphere.
Photo: NASA/JPL -Caltech/SSI/Univ. of Arizona/G. Mitri/University of Nantes
