The Saturn moon Titan is a strange world that is covered by lakes of liquid hydrocarbons such as methane rather than those that exist as gases on Earth. It’s very cold there, but deep in the moon, maybe there’s liquid water. We don’t know exactly what is hidden by the cold surface of the moon, but thanks to data collected by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, we know that Titan as a whole is on its way out.
The moon is drifting away from its host planet at a speed that is significantly faster than previously thought. Based on the latest data, Titan hovers around four inches further than Saturn every year.
The moon tends to drift. The orbits of large objects are rarely perfect and that means that small changes occur over time. The Earth’s moon, for example, moves about 1.5 inches from our planet every year. It will not leave us – at least not for a very, very long time – and this movement is common on the moon.
In the case of Titan, this discovery actually helped researchers to better understand Saturn itself. Saturn is believed to be around 4.6 billion years old. Sometime between its formation and today, he got a thick ring and a number of moons. No, seriously, Saturn has 80 months. Yes, it is very wild.
This discovery not only tells scientists what might happen in the future for Titan and Saturn, but allows them to rewind time in a new way. By applying the same rate of deviation, astronomers now believe that Titan began its life closer to Saturn than previously thought and that the Moon system that surrounds the planet is developing much faster than originally estimated.
“The new measurements imply that this kind of planet-moon interaction can be more prominent than previous expectations and that they can apply to many systems, like other lunar planetary systems, exoplanets – which are outside our solar system – and even binary star systems, where stars orbiting each other, “said JimFuller, author of the study, in a statement.
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft spent a decade sailing around Saturn before finally running out of fuel and doing a series of very bold “Grand Finale” dives through the planetary ring. After finishing diving, his final act was to destroy himself by hitting Saturn’s atmosphere. The spacecraft continues to send data back even when it is being destroyed. The impact power with the atmosphere obliterated the engine.
