Saturn’s beautiful rings form a striking feature, cutting across this image of two of the planet’s most intriguing moons: Titan (diameter, 3,200 miles) and Enceladus (313 miles). The rings have been a source of mystery since their discovery in 1610 by Galileo Galilei, but there is not full agreement on how they formed.
New research suggests that some of Saturn’s icy moons, as well as its famous rings, might be modern adornments. Their dramatic birth may have taken place a mere 100 million years ago. This would date the formation of the major moons of Saturn, with the exception of more distant Titan and Iapetus, to the relatively recent Cretaceous Period — the era of the dinosaurs.
By convention, mountains on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, are named for mountains from Middle-earth, the fictional setting in fantasy novels by J.R.R. Tolkien. Unfortunately for “Lord of the Rings” fans, Titan’s highest peak is not Doom Mons, but a trio of ridges known as Mithrim Montes, where the tallest peak is 10,948 feet (3,337 metres) high.
Titan is home to seas and lakes filled with liquid hydrocarbons, but what forms the depressions on the surface? A new study using data from the joint NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) Cassini mission suggests the moon’s surface dissolves in a process that’s similar to the creation of sinkholes on Earth.
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