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Violent Methane Storms on Titan May Solve Dune Direction Mystery

posted by CoolHand on Wednesday April 15 2015, @03:01AM   
from the sand-dune-in-our-crevices dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

ScienceDaily reports:

Titan, Saturn's largest moon, is among the most Earthlike places in the solar system. As the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft examines Titan, its discoveries bring new mysteries. One of these is that the seemingly wind-created sand dunes spotted near the moon's equator point one direction, but the near-surface winds point another direction. Astronomers may have solved this mystery.
...

Here's the problem: Climate simulations indicate that Titan's near-surface winds -- like Earth's trade winds -- blow toward the west. So why do the surface dunes, reaching a hundred yards high and many miles long, point to the east?
...

Violent methane storms high in Titan's dense atmosphere, where winds do blow toward the east, might be the answer, according to new research by University of Washington astronomer Benjamin Charnay and co-authors in a paper published today in the journal Nature Geoscience. Using computer models, Charnay, a UW post-doctoral researcher, and co-authors hypothesize that the attitude of Titan's sand dunes results from rare methane storms that produce eastward gusts much stronger than the usual westward surface winds.

Will we one day discover Titanians wind-surfing the seas of methane?

• Wind surfing titanians one day? (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday April 15 2015, @04:00AM

  by c0lo (156) on Wednesday April 15 2015, @04:00AM (#170741) Journal

  Why, certainly! Just wait some 5 billion years for the Sun to become a red giant [wikipedia.org], then some several hundred million more for wind surfing titanians to evolve.
  Careful, though, they may stink of ammonia.

  Conditions on Titan could become far more habitable in the far future. Five billion years from now, as the Sun becomes a red giant, its surface temperature could rise enough for Titan to support liquid water on its surface making it habitable.[161] As the Sun's ultraviolet output decreases, the haze in Titan's upper atmosphere will be depleted, lessening the anti-greenhouse effect on the surface and enabling the greenhouse created by atmospheric methane to play a far greater role. These conditions together could create a habitable environment, and could persist for several hundred million years. This was sufficient time for simple life to evolve on Earth, although the presence of ammonia on Titan would cause chemical reactions to proceed more slowly.

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  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford

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