Calm Lakes on Titan Could Mean Smooth Landing for Future Space Probes

Credit: Cyril Grima/ The University of Texas at Austin

Titan is the largest moon of Saturn and one of the locations in the solar system that is thought to possess the ingredients for life. In photos taken by the Cassini orbiter, a NASA probe, it appears as a smooth brown orb because of its thick atmosphere clouded with gaseous nitrogen and hydrocarbons. However, radar images from the same probe show that it has a surface crust made of water ice and drenched in liquid hydrocarbons. On Titan, methane and ethane fall from the sky as rain, fill deep lakes that dot the surface, and are possibly spewed into the air by icy volcanoes called cryovolcanoes.

“The atmosphere of Titan is very complex, and it does synthesize complex organic molecules–the bricks of life,” Grima said. “It may act as a laboratory of sorts, where you can see how basic molecules can be transformed into more complex molecules that could eventually lead to life.”

On top of that, it’s also thought to have an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy crust.

As a graduate student at the Université Grenoble Alpes in France, and then a postdoctoral fellow at UTIG, Grima developed a technique for measuring surface roughness in minute detail from radar data. Called radar statistical reconnaissance, the technique has been used to measure the snow density and its surface roughness in Antarctica and the Arctic, and to assist the landing site selection of NASA’s Mars lander InSight, which is scheduled to launch next year. Researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory suggested he apply the technique to measuring Titan’s waves.

Titan is Saturn’s largest moon. Its cloudy appearance comes from an atmosphere mixed with gaseous nitrogen and hydrocarbons.

Credit: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory/ Cassini Orbiter.