Raisin' Mountains on Saturn's Moon Titan

August 12, 2010

Saturn's moon Titan ripples with mountains, and scientists have been trying to figure out how they form. The best explanation, it turns out, is that Titan is shrinking as it cools, wrinkling up the moon's surface like a raisin.

A new model developed by scientists working with radar data obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows that differing densities in the outermost layers of Titan can account for the unusual surface behavior. Titan is slowly cooling because it is releasing heat from its original formation and radioactive isotopes are decaying in the interior. As this happens, parts of Titan's subsurface ocean freeze over, the outermost ice crust thickens and folds, and the moon shrivels up. The model is described in an article now online in the Journal of Geophysical Research... 

(Read the rest of  http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-266)