A team of scientists from the University of Washington (USA) has solved the mystery that surrounded the dunes of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, within its dense and hazy atmosphere. The fact that the sand dunes pointed in the opposite direction to the air currents that circulated just above them was a mystery that we could not answer. Until now .
According to climate simulations carried out by experts, Titan’s winds blow in a westerly direction, however, the dunes, which are even hundreds of meters high and many kilometers long, point to the east . For what reason? The conclusions of the study, which has been published in the journal Nature Geoscience , reveal that the behavior of the dunes is due to a rare class of methane storms, that is, the one responsible is Titan’s own atmosphere.
To arrive at this certainty, the scientists, led by astronomer Benjamin Charnay, used various computer models that showed that a strange class of methane storms, which occur every fifteen years or so, is what causes violent gusts of wind in the east direction . As these wind gusts are much more powerful than surface winds (they calculate that they reach speeds of up to 10 meters per second), the dunes end up showing their shape in the opposite direction to what they would naturally have.
“These gusts to the east are very fast and control the transport of sand, and therefore justify the fact that the dunes point in the same direction, ” explains Charnay, leader of the study.
Titan is one of the most Earth-like places in the entire Solar System, and thanks to the Cassini probe, we obtain useful data that often provide new mysteries to be solved. The Cassini mission will end in 2017 , so it will be necessary to send other missions to confirm this recent hypothesis about the largest moon of Saturn.
“ There are still a lot of mysteries left on Titan . For example, we still don’t know how such a dense nitrogen atmosphere could have formed. And we can’t totally exclude the possibility that there is life there, perhaps in the methane seas and lakes on the surface. Titan is a fascinating and evolving world that has yet to be fully understood ”, clarifies Charnay.
