EUROPE: Rare tropical methane storms might help solve the mystery behind giant and strange dunes that are formed on Titan that is Saturn’s largest moon.
When NASA’s Cassini spacecraft started exploring Titan in 2004, its most uncanny discovery was these fields of dunes that cover around 15 percent of Titan’s surface along its equator. The dark, massive dunes that are largest of their kind in the solar system are made up with exotic as well as composed of hydrogen and carbon. They can be more than 330 feet high and are 18 to 31 miles long.
An earlier research found that Titan’s winds do blow eastward at altitudes above 3 miles. The finding led scientists to wonder if the high winds might somehow help resolve the puzzle even though these winds blow far above the dunes.
Titan is the only moon in the solar system that has a thick atmosphere composed of nitrogen having a trace of methane that can form into clouds. During the equinox when days and nights become of equal length, Titan experiences huge, violent methane storms in its tropical regions around the equator.
A computer model of weather on Titan revealed that methane clouds can reach altitudes of 15.5 miles. Researchers found that methane storms can produce downward drifts that flow eastward on strong gusts after they reach Titan’s surface.
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