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The water currents of Saturn‘s largest moon Titan reveal the effects of varying hydrocarbon rain across different regions.
Beneath the thick, cottony orange atmosphere, Titan hides a remarkable treasure: a vast sea of hydrocarbon lakes with dry beaches. These colossal bodies, concentrated in the poles and especially the north, are the only water regions discovered in our solar system (besides Earth, of course). Their discovery was primarily credited to the radar of the Cassini probe in the 2000s.
These lakes and seas, sometimes exceeding a hundred meters in depth, are believed to be composed of a mixture of liquid methane, ethane, and dissolved nitrogen. However, their exact dimensions remain unclear. A recent study suggests that the concentration of ethane varies across latitudes, potentially due to rainfall patterns. This surprising discovery is based on a novel analytical method…