Tall mountain range found on Titan

AP on Yahoo ^ | 12/12/06 | AP

[NormsRevenge]

SAN FRANCISCO - The international Cassini spacecraft spotted a nearly mile-high mountain range shrouded in hazy clouds on Saturn's giant moon Titan, scientists reported Tuesday.

The mountains, which stretch for nearly 100 miles, surprised researchers who re-analyzed the images to double-check that they were real and not shadows of other surface features.

Robert Brown, a Cassini scientist from the University of Arizona, said the mountains reminded him of California's Sierra Nevada range.

"You can call this the Titan Sierra," said Brown, who unveiled the new infrared images at an American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

The mountains are the tallest ever seen on Titan and probably formed from the same process that occurs in the Earth's mid-ocean ridge. Scientists speculated that hot material beneath Titan's surface gushed up when tectonic plates pulled apart, creating the mountain range.

Cassini found the summit of the range capped with brilliant white layers that are likely deposits of methane or another organic material.

Cassini flew by Titan on Oct. 25 and snapped images of the mountains. It also found new evidence of sand dunes and a circular feature resembling the remnant of a volcano.

Launched in 1997, Cassini is funded by NASA and the European and Italian space agencies.

[NormsRevenge]

On the Net:

Cassini mission: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm

[KevinDavis]

[NormsRevenge]

Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Press release

Massive Mountain Range Imaged on Saturn's Moon Titan

The tallest mountains ever seen on Titan -- coated with layers of organic material and blanketed by clouds -- have been imaged on Saturn's moon Titan by NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

[Jeff Head]

...and here they are:

[Jeff Head]

...oops. Too slow.

[NormsRevenge]

(above) This composite image shows a massive mountain range running just south of Titan's equator. Near the center of the image, the mountain range runs from southeast to northwest. It is about 150 kilometers long (93 miles) and 30 kilometers (19 miles) wide and about 1.5 kilometers (nearly a mile) high. This range, and smaller ranges to the west and east of the main range, probably results from material welling up below as the crust of Titan is pulled apart by tectonic forces.

[NormsRevenge]

stereo view .. Thanks! :-)

[Jeff Head]

hehehe...lol! Thank you for the interesting posts my friend.

[martin_fierro]

"You can call this the Titan Sierra,"

So it's ugly and will fall apart in a few years?

[Lokibob]

The tallest mountains ever seen on Titan -- coated with layers of organic material and blanketed by clouds -- have been imaged on Saturn's moon Titan by NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

 

Organic material????????    What is this?????

[verum ago]

organic material= mixture of carbon-based compounds
does not necessarily have anything to do with life, if that's what you were wondering

[SunkenCiv]

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[Fred Nerks]

This range, and smaller ranges to the west and east of the main range, probably results from material welling up below as the crust of Titan is pulled apart by tectonic forces.

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Titan is expanding, is it?

[FierceDraka]

So this means that Earth might not be the only world in the Solar System that experiences tectonic activity.

Sweet!

[SunkenCiv]

:')