Underground Ocean on Saturn's Moon!

Information collected by the Cassini spacecraft has reaffirmed beliefs that there might be an ocean of water beneath the surface of Saturn’s moon Titan.

Titan is the second largest moon in the Solar System (smaller only than Jupiter’s Ganymede) and the largest among the more than 50 other known moons of Saturn. It is even bigger in diameter form the planet Mercury.

Titan has a dense atmosphere reputed for its blanket of clouds and comprising mainly Nitrogen and other Hydrocarbon elements which give Titan its orange color.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a joint venture of NASA, ESA (The European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency.

Between 2005 and 2007 Cassini had made repeated passes of the moon and provided information regarding numerous mountains and lakes on its surface.

Titans’ crust was found to be mostly solid, with features such as dunes, channels and craters.

Later data from the spacecraft however revealed that these features of Titan had been displaced over time by more than 30 km.

Minor shifts in crust are attributed to the winds blowing on the surface but scientists believe that such remarkable displacements in Titans crust could only be possible due to the presence of an ocean beneath the surface.

The ocean estimated to be roughly 100-150 km beneath the surface thus is believed to be responsible for crust movements, basically allowing the crust to float on the water surface.

The ocean is believed to be comprised of mainly water with traces of ammonia present. Titan is also well known for the large amounts of hydrocarbon molecules found on it.

The discovery of the ocean thus has given Titan the two most basic ingredients for life, namely water and organic molecules.

Titan is said to have features most similar to Earth, similar topography, similar weather and a much much larger diversity and bulk of organic molecules than found on Earth.

This recent discovery has stimulated tremendous interest in this moon and many scientists are now calling upon sending another probe to Titan with more enhanced capabilities and latest data rendering technologies.

Other moons in the solar system on which scientists have suggested the possibility of underground oceans include Saturn's Enceladus and Jupiter's Ganymede, Europa and Callisto.