Radar images taken by the spacecraft Cassini, have revealed new oddities on the surface of the mysterious Titan, a moon of Saturn, including almost all education, which resembles a giant Easter bun (hot cross bun), and the coastline of ancient seas.

In the baking process upper part rolls up and crack. Scientists believe that something similar is happening on Titan.

Upland like an Easter bun cracks that converge near the centre in the manner of the cross. The right - top of the Venusian volcano with the same features. (Here and below the image NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASI.)

The image Bulgartabac hill was received on 22 may 2012. Such landscape specialists have already seen on Venus: there convex region with a diameter of about 30 km was seen on top of a large volcano called Kunapipi. Perhaps bun Titanium with a diameter of approximately 70 km also occurred due to faults caused by the ascent from below - magma, for example. Rosalie Lopez from the jet propulsion Laboratory of NASA notes that on Earth like Intrusive arrays are called laccoliths, one of the most famous examples is the mountain Henry in Utah.

Another group of researchers headed by Ellen Stofan of the company Proxemy Research (USA) had carefully studied the radar image of the southern hemisphere of Titan. Titan is the only place in the Solar system, other than Land, with stable liquid on the surface, although this liquid - hydrocarbon, not the water. Still the vast sea were seen only in the Northern hemisphere of Titan.

A new analysis of images from Cassini in 2008-2011, showed that in the South were once extensive shallow sea. Ms. Stefan and her colleagues have found two good candidates in dry or mainly dry sea. The size of one of them - 475 at 280 km and a depth of several hundred meters. The remnant of the once vast sea also called Ontario is the largest of the existing lakes of the southern hemisphere.

Scientists managed Oded Aharonson from the California Institute of technology (USA), believe that on Titan acts similar cycles Krall - Milankovitch that explain changes in our climate changes orbit around the Sun. Perhaps they lead on Titan that liquid hydrocarbons are concentrated in one or in the other hemisphere. According to this model, the South pole of Titan was covered by vast seas of less than 50 thousand years ago, and the average cycle length is estimated at more than 100 thousand years.

In this case sea Titanium is only temporary owners experiments in the field of prebiotic chemistry. Analysis of the dried sea bottom could tell, to what extent have the time to develop a chemistry.



The ancient sea of the southern hemisphere of Titan. Marked coastline. Black spot is lake Ontario, the largest in the southern hemisphere.

The research results were presented at the conference planetological section of the American astronomical society in Reno (Nevada).

Based on the materials of the jet propulsion Laboratory of NASA.