Bubble Tea | by Brian Koberlein

NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI/Cornell

Titan is a chilly and distant world, shrouded in a thick, smoggy ambiance. Whereas it is extremely totally different than Earth, it shares many related options. It has a fancy geology with seas and rivers, rains and seasons. As an alternative of liquid water, the seas of Titan are liquid hydrocarbons corresponding to methane and ethane. Whereas these liquid hydrocarbons share many similarities with liquid water on Earth, there are additionally important variations.

Titan’s thick ambiance obscures the floor at seen wavelengths, however radar photos can penetrate the ambiance to disclose its floor. When the Cassini spacecraft made a number of shut flybys of Titan, it was capable of seize high-resolution radar photos of the floor. The options they revealed look much like the lakes of Northern Canada. However it additionally captured unusual “magic islands” that appeared to seem and disappear over time.

Clearly, islands don’t simply disappear. It was probably a floor impact that mirrored radar in a method much like the strong terrain. However there’s been some debate as to its trigger. One concept was that it was resulting from waves on the lake, attributable to excessive winds, or maybe ice forming on the floor. However one other concept is that the magic islands have been resulting from bubbles of nitrogen rising out of the lake.

Lately, simulations of Titan’s atmosphere help the bubble concept. As just lately printed in Geophysical Analysis Letters, ^{when a mix of methane, ethane, and nitrogen are held at temperatures and pressures much like Titan, it will probably produce speedy bubble formation of nitrogen. It’s attainable for such bubbles to be fashioned in lakes resulting from geologic exercise, and they might seem much like the magic islands noticed on Titan.}

Giant bubble areas couldn’t solely idiot radar photos into seeing “magic islands,” they may additionally play a crucial function within the geology of Titan, shaping the way in which lakes and rivers type on the icy world.