Titan's Xanadu Area Has Earth-Like Region
Posted on: Tuesday, 25 July 2006, 18:00 CDT
New radar images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft reveal geological features similar to Earth on Xanadu, a bright region on Saturn's moon Titan.
NASA said the radar images, from a strip more than 2,796 miles long, show Xanadu is surrounded by darker terrain, reminiscent of a free-standing landmass. At the region's western edge, dark sand dunes give way to land cut by river networks, hills and valleys. Appalachian-sized mountains crisscross the region.
We could only speculate about the nature of this mysterious bright country, too far from us for details to be revealed by Earth-based and space-based telescopes, said Jonathan Lunine, Cassini interdisciplinary scientists at the University of Arizona-Tucson. Surprisingly, this cold, faraway region has geological features remarkably like Earth.
Xanadu was first discovered by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in 1994. When Cassini's radar system viewed Xanadu on April 30, 2006, it found a surface modified by winds, rain, and the flow of liquids. Because of Titan's extremely low temperatures, the liquid almost certainly is methane or ethane.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.
Source: United Press International
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