Cassini images confirm presence of liquid on Titan

The NASA’s Cassini snapped the first ever images of the Titan’s lake, when the sunlight reflected on it.

According to the NASA’s article, “Cassini scientists had been looking for the glint, also known as a ‘specular reflection', since the spacecraft began orbiting Saturn in 2004. But until recently Titan's northern hemisphere, where most of the lakes are located, had been veiled in winter darkness. Now, however, the seasons are changing and sunlight has returned to the north, allowing Cassini to capture this serendipitous image.”

Though the existence of hydrocarbon lakes had already been confirmed by other means on Titan, this is the first time that images have been taken to back these claims.

“It was a little bit of luck,” said Katrin Stephan of German Aerospace Center in Berlin, who was the first person to detect the glint of light while going through infrared images.

Scientists keeping track of Titan
NASA’s scientists are keeping a close watch on the Titan for decades now, because of the striking similarities between the Saturn’s moon and Earth. It is also the only celestial body, apart from Earth, in the solar system where liquid hydrocarbon reservoirs are known to exist.

Scientists are hopeful that the presence of liquid on another moon or a planet will eventually lead to the discovery of some kind of life there.

A scientist analyzing data from Cassini unmanned space survey, Ralf Jaumann said, "This is the first time outside Earth we've seen specular reflection from another liquid from another body. It was great because if you look at photos of planets, you mostly see nothing is happening. But in two hours we saw a glint of light getting brighter."

The lakes were found on two polar regions of the Titan.

Proposal to put ‘boat’ down on its sea surface to know more
In an attempt to know more about the contents of the liquid in the lake, a daring proposal is about to be submitted to the NASA, in which it has been suggested to put a “boat” down in the lake to explore it better.

The lake targeted for this purpose is Ligeia Mare, an enormous body of liquid methane in the high north of Titan, covering 100,000 sq km area.

A little about Titan, Saturn’s largest moon
The Saturn orbits the sun once in every 29.46 Earth years (approximate estimate) resulting in the change of season on Titan.

On Titan, cold winter season lasts for about 15 Earth years. Due to this long period of cold, its atmosphere is known to have a dense and foggy atmosphere.