Titan's shadows exposed as seas of sculpted sand

[WhiteTara]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-2165921,00.html
By Mark Henderson, Science Correspondent


SATURN’S largest moon, Titan, boasts vast seas of sand reminiscent of the science fiction desert planet of Frank Herbert’s Dune novels, scientists have discovered.

Radar images from the Cassini spacecraft, which is surveying Saturn, its rings and its satellites, have revealed that dark patches around Titan’s equator, once thought to be liquid oceans, are in fact vast expanses of sand dunes.

Titan’s dunes rise up to 330ft (100m) high, and run parallel to one another for hundreds of miles, resembling the great waves of dunes found on Earth in the Arabian and Namibian deserts, researchers said.

The longest of the dune fields observed from Cassini stretches for more than 930 miles (1,500km).

titan dunes


nambia dunes

[magellan]

1. Fascinating article

Thanks!

[roguevalley]

2. beautiful

[Kurovski]

3. Seconded.

Beautiful.