Scientists studying the conditions on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, have found that the particles covering much of its surface are electrically charged. Not only that, but the particles tend to clump together and become immovable dunes climbing to as high as 300 feet.

Science Daily reported this week that Titan, which has displayed a strange phenomenon where winds on the moon blow from east to west while massive 300-foot-tall sand dunes tend to form in the windward direction, is able to do so due to the electrification of the non-silicate granules that cover its surface.

Josh Méndez Harper, the lead author of the study and a Georgia Tech geophysics and electrical engineering doctoral candidate, said of the phenomenon, “These electrostatic forces increase frictional thresholds. This makes the grains so sticky and cohesive that only heavy winds can move them. The prevailing winds aren’t strong enough to shape the dunes.”

Professor Josef Dufek of Georgia Tech, a co-leader of the study, described the massive dunes.

“If you grabbed piles of grains and built a sand castle on Titan, it would perhaps stay together for weeks due to their electrostatic properties,” said “Any spacecraft that lands in regions of granular material on Titan is going to have a tough time staying clean. Think of putting a cat in a box of packing peanuts.”

http://www.inquisitr.com/4100339/titan-sand-dunes-on-saturns-moon-are-electric-and-do-not-move-scientists-say/

It’s an interesting idea and I’ll guess we’ll see how it will “stick”. I mean one reason that these particles will tend to stick together more than silicates is that these particles are made of ices.

Where did that image of Titan come from?

I can’t see how the heck it can be genuine?

mollwollfumble said:

Where did that image of Titan come from?

I can’t see how the heck it can be genuine?

It would have to from Hyugens wouldn’t it

As Huygens was primarily an atmospheric mission, the DISR instrument was optimized to study the radiation balance inside Titan’s atmosphere. Its visible and infrared spectrometers and violet photometers measured the up- and downward radiant flux from an altitude of 145 kilometers down to the surface. Solar aureole cameras measured how scattering by aerosols varies the intensity directly around the Sun. Three imagers, sharing the same CCD, periodically imaged a swath of around 30 degrees wide, ranging from almost nadir to just above the horizon. Aided by the slowly spinning probe they would build up a full mosaic of the landing site, which, surprisingly, became clearly visible only below 25 kilometers altitude. All measurements were timed by aid of a shadow bar, which would tell DISR when the Sun had passed through the field of view. Unfortunately, this scheme was upset by the fact that Huygens rotated in a direction opposite to that expected. Just before landing a lamp was switched on to illuminate the surface, which enabled measurements of the surface reflectance at wavelengths which are completely blocked out by atmospheric methane absorption.

DISR was developed at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona under the direction of Martin Tomasko, with several European institutes contributing to the hardware. “The scientific objectives of the experiment fall into four areas including (1) measurement of the solar heating profile for studies of the thermal balance of Titan; (2) imaging and spectral reflection measurements of the surface for studies of the composition, topography, and physical processes which form the surface as well as for direct measurements of the wind profile during the descent; (3) measurements of the brightness and degree of linear polarization of scattered sunlight including the solar aureole together with measurements of the extinction optical depth of the aerosols as a function of wavelength and altitude to study the size, shape, vertical distribution, optical properties, sources and sinks of aerosols in Titan’s atmosphere; and (4) measurements of the spectrum of downward solar flux to study the composition of the atmosphere, especially the mixing ratio profile of methane throughout the descent.”

mollwollfumble said:

Where did that image of Titan come from?

I can’t see how the heck it can be genuine?

It’s a radar image from the Cassini orbiter.

Caption:

The moons of our Solar System are brimming with unusual landscapes. However, sometimes they look a little more familiar, as in this new radar image from the Cassini orbiter. The image shows dark streaks carved into dunes reminiscent of those we might find on a beach on Earth, or raked with flowing lines in a Japanese Zen garden — but this scene is actually taking place on Saturn’s moon Titan. While our sand is composed of silicates, the ‘sand’ of these alien dunes is formed from grains of organic materials about the same size as particles of our beach sand. The small size and smoothness of these grains means that the flowing lines carved into the dunes show up as dark to the human eye. While previous images have spotted these eerily familiar patterns on Titan’s dunes, this new image (colorized) shows them in greater detail. The image was obtained by Cassini’s radar mapper on July 10, 2013. The vertical seam near the center is an artifact of radar image data processing. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Sci-News.com.

http://www.sci-news.com/space/science-titan-sand-dunes-02329.html

Titan is amazing.

How lucky we are to live in such an interesting solar system, or at all.

Bubblecar said:

mollwollfumble said:

Where did that image of Titan come from?

I can’t see how the heck it can be genuine?

It’s a radar image from the Cassini orbiter.

Caption:

The moons of our Solar System are brimming with unusual landscapes. However, sometimes they look a little more familiar, as in this new radar image from the Cassini orbiter. The image shows dark streaks carved into dunes reminiscent of those we might find on a beach on Earth, or raked with flowing lines in a Japanese Zen garden — but this scene is actually taking place on Saturn’s moon Titan. While our sand is composed of silicates, the ‘sand’ of these alien dunes is formed from grains of organic materials about the same size as particles of our beach sand. The small size and smoothness of these grains means that the flowing lines carved into the dunes show up as dark to the human eye. While previous images have spotted these eerily familiar patterns on Titan’s dunes, this new image (colorized) shows them in greater detail. The image was obtained by Cassini’s radar mapper on July 10, 2013. The vertical seam near the center is an artifact of radar image data processing. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Sci-News.com.

http://www.sci-news.com/space/science-titan-sand-dunes-02329.html

Whoever thought of putting radar onboard Cassini is a genius.