Space probes, terrestrial telescopes, space observatory, no one had ever obtained such a clear image of the atmosphere of Saturn’s largest moon. Titan, the biggest moon of Saturn, as the telescope recently did James Webb of the NASA.
Titan not only attracts the attention of astronomers, engineers and astrophysicists because of its size, but also records conditions in which it can be compared to Earth.
Not enough to support life as we know it, but in some ways confirmed by recent observations by James Webb.
According The NASA on its official website Titan is the only moon in the solar system to have a dense atmosphere. It is also the only planetary body, besides Earth, that currently has rivers, lakes, and seas.
But, in order not to get carried away, the liquid circulating in these rivers is composed of hydrocarbons, in particular methane and ethane, and not water. Its atmosphere is filled with a thick fog that obscures the visible light reflected from the surface, and it is precisely this kind of detail that has been captured by the camera of the European Space Agency. James Webb.
Images of Saturn’s moon Titan
What is most remarkable about this new observation is that it was made with the infrared tools of the space telescope. Thus, every element of Titan’s atmosphere is captured in detail.
Among those that scientists mention and highlight as fascinating are weather patterns and its gaseous composition. They also looked through the haze to study the characteristics of albedo, that is, those light and dark spots that appear on the surface.
“We just received our first images of Titan taken by Webb last night, very exciting! There appears to be a large cloud we think over the north polar region near Kraken Mare. We feared that the clouds had disappeared when we observed Titan two days later with Keck, but to our delight we saw the presence of clouds in the same places, which seemed to have changed shape,” the European Commissioner told the environment, Imke de Father at the University of California, Berkele.