Strange bright patches observed in the southern tropical regions of Saturn moon Titan over a decade ago are likely the beds of dried-up hydrocarbon lakes and seas. The observations could shed light on Titan’s climate history and inform the hunt for potentially habitable environments.
Titan is a prime candidate in the search for life
© NASA/JPL-Caltech
The patches were viewed as likely evidence of lakes or seas on Titan, which was widely expected to harbour such bodies, said Jason Hofgartner of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. That early expectation was borne out after NASA’s Cassini spacecraft arrived in orbit around Saturn in 2004.