Saturn Moon Titan Sports Thick Icy Shell & Bizarre Interior

[Eugene]

Source: SPACE.com

Saturn Moon Titan Sports Thick Icy Shell & Bizarre Interior

by Charles Q. Choi, SPACE.com Contributor | August 28, 2013 01:01pm ET

The tough icy shell of Saturn's largest moon Titan is apparently far stronger than previously thought, researchers say.

These surprising new findings add to hints Titan possesses an extraordinarily bizarre interior, scientists added.

Past research suggested Titan has an ocean hidden under its outer icy shell 30 to 120 miles (50 to 200 kilometers) thick. Investigators aim to explore this underground ocean in the hopes of finding alien life on Titan, since virtually wherever there is water on Earth, there is life.

To learn more about Titan's icy shell, planetary scientist Doug Hemingway at the University of California, Santa Cruz, analyzed the Cassini probe's scans of Titan's gravity field. The strength of the gravitational pull any point on a surface exerts depends on the amount of mass underneath it. The stronger the pull, the more the mass.

[font size=1]-snip-[/font]

Read more: http://www.space.com/22570-titan-ice-shell-bizarre-interior.html

[Warren DeMontague]

1. It sounds kind of like a DQ Blizzard.

[eShirl]

2. all I can picture in my mind is blind Sea Monkeys swimming around in the dark

occasionally bashing into the ice-sky

[ChazInAz]

3. So...Vonnegut was wrong?

No sirens there?