SPACE
Webb captures extraordinary clouds on Titan
WORDS JOANNA WENDEL
4 NOVEMBER 2022
Evolution of clouds on Titan over 30 hours between 4 and 6 November 2022
6 NOVEMBER 2022
Scientists spotted something exciting on Saturn’s moon Titan in
images taken by NASA’s James
Webb Space Telescope in early November: clouds. Specifically, clouds in Titan’s northern hemisphere. To a casual observer, clouds might be a dime a dozen. But to scientists, clouds can reveal a lot about the atmosphere of a planet, or in this case, a moon. Titan is the only moon in the Solar System with a thick atmosphere, so studying clouds helps scientists understand how Titan’s atmosphere works, and why it has an atmosphere in the first place. The clouds further validate weather models that predict the appearance of clouds in Titan’s northern hemisphere during its summer, when the region is bathed in sunlight.