Stochastic Scribbles
Random musings in a variety of subjects, from science to religion.

New lakes on Titan

Titan, the largest moon of the planet Saturn, is a pretty wet place. But it’s not wet with water. Titan is so cold that the moon even has lakes of liquid methane and even rains down methane. Observations by the Cassini spacecraft in 2004 and 2005 saw a lake of liquid methane form where there was none before. And given the presence of clouds, not made out of water but out of methane, it’s reasonable to conclude that the lake was created by a downpour of liquid methane rain.

Changes in Titan’s lakes; from NASA

I must be really easy to impress, since the thought of rain on another world is kind of exciting, especially since it’s not the kind of rain we’re used to on our own planet. And there’s enough rain on Titan to create an entire lake within a year. Perhaps in the far future when humans have colonized Titan, we might see vacationing people diving into the cold methane lakes …