The project staff Cassini saw miniature extraterrestrial a copy of the Nile river valley on Titan, a moon of Saturn, which stretches more than 400 km from the "sources" to the great sea. For the first time on a celestial body found such a large river system. Besides sealed with unprecedented resolution.

Scientists believe that the river in the Northern polar region of Titan carries liquid hydrocarbons, as all its surface, as far as can be discerned on the radar image, remarkably smooth. About it tells the immutability of its dark color.

"She has a few short, small bends, but in General, the relative straightforwardness of the river valley suggests it should at least one fault, like other large rivers flowing into the southern part of the sea, " says Jani Radebe from Brigham young University (USA). Such fractures (cracks in the crust of Titan may not necessarily related to plate tectonics, but still lead to the discovery of the pools and, possibly, to the formation of giant of the seas".

Titan is the only world except our own, the surface of which there is a stable liquid. While on Earth hydrological cycle is based on the water on Titan it relies on hydrocarbons - ethane and methane first of all. In pictures Equatorial regions received Cassini in the optical part of the spectrum in the end of 2010, regions were revealed, darkened from recent rains. In 2008, optical and infrared kartografiyi spectrometer device has confirmed the existence of lakes of liquid ethane in the southern hemisphere (Ontario Lacus).

The above radar image taken on September 26, 2012. It shows a North polar region of Titan from the river valley, flowing into the sea Kraken, which in size is somewhere between the Caspian and the Mediterranean.

As for the terrestrial Nile, its length is about 6 700 km of the Processes that led to its formation, is not so easy to describe. Suffice it to mention that in his case also played a role faults in some regions.

Below are pictures of the Nile in the area of the Fourth threshold (Sudan). The top picture is taken from the space Shuttle "Columbia" in November 1995. The bottom is a radar image received in April 1994 device Spaceborne Imaging Radar C/X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SIR-C/X-SAR) space Shuttle "endeavour". It is well visible not only a modern way, but the old, buried in the sand. Color versions of these pictures with a detailed description can be found here.

http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=52410