Floating 'magic islands' on Saturn's moon Titan may be honeycomb-shaped snow

By Robert Lea published about 18 hours ago
The largest moon of Saturn snows organic compounds that may form glacier-like chunks in Titans methane lakes.



(Left) A view of saturn's moon Titan taken by cassini (Right) an illustration of the landscape of the large Saturnian moon (Image credit: NASA/JPL)


The floating "magic islands" of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, may finally have a scientific explanation. Scientists believe they're clumps of glacier-like snow shaped like honeycomb.

The so-called islands were first spotted in 2014 by the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft as it peered through the orange haze surrounding Titan, which is a moon that's bigger than the planet Mercury. Appearing as shifting bright spots on the Saturnian moon above lakes of liquid methane and ethane, the islands left scientists struggling for an explanation. No one could figure out how these ephemeral blocks could appear, then simply disappear, from observation to observation.

However, new research led by Xinting Yu, an assistant professor at the University of Texas San Antonio's Department of Physics and Astronomy, suggests these magic islands are actually floating chunks of porous, frozen organic solids in shaped not unlike those of honeycomb or Swiss cheese. Presumably, the solids accumulate after snowing from the sky of Titan.

"I wanted to investigate whether the magic islands could actually be organics floating on the surface, like pumice that can float on water here on Earth before finally sinking," Yu said in a statement.

More:
https://www.space.com/floating-magic-islands-saturn-moon-titan-swiss-cheese-snow?utm_source=notification