spacetoday.net: Cassini spots lakes on Titan

Posted: Wed, Jul 26, 2006, 7:55 AM ET (1155 GMT)
Titan lakes near north pole (NASA/JPL)

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has identified what scientists call "very strong evidence" for lakes of hydrocarbon on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan. Radar images of the surface of the cloud-enshrouded moon showed several dark features at high latitudes near the moon's north pole. Dark areas in radar images correspond with smooth surfaces, suggesting that these areas lakes containing liquid methane or ethane; in addition, the radar images show what appear to be rims surrounding some of the lakes. Planetary scientists had long suspected that Titan would have lakes or even seas of liquid hydrocarbons, but little evidence of such features had been detected by Cassini since it arrived in the Saturn system two years ago. Scientists did identify last year what may be a lake near the moon's south pole.