NASA has released images of the two unexplained bright spots in Titan ’s largest sea known as “ magic island . ”
In June , astronomersdrew attentionto a bright spot in Ligeia Mare , the second largest liquid body on Titan . The spot was visible in images ingest in July 2013 , but had disappeared thereafter .
NASA / JPL - Caltech / ASI / Cornell . The change face of Ligeia Mare
Titan ’s seasons seemed to be the potential explanation for the images since they were taken in spring in the northern cerebral hemisphere , where all threehydrocarbon seasare locate . Four briny theoriesprovided a more lineal explanation : wafture ram by increasing malarky , quick-frozen subsurface material , solids floating on the control surface and bubbles of gas released from a warming ocean storey .
Last week , a Planetary Sciences Division of the American Astronomical Society shop was enjoin that two more appearing / disappear actshad been spotted , this time in Kraken Mare , Titan ’s largest sea .
These images have now been discharge , showing Kraken ’s objects to be orotund and cleared than the original
NASA / JPL - Caltech / ASI / Cornell . A equivalence of the same part of Kraken Mare fifteen calendar month aside .
Cassini ’s microwave radar take up the surface at unlike slant on the two days : 56 ° in May and 5 ° in August . However , astronomers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory are sure-footed the differences in the images represent something strong-arm , rather than being an artifact of the Cassini ’s location at the clip .
" They could be waves , or they could be something more solid , " MIT ’s Jason Soderblom , toldNational Geographic . " We emphatically know now they are something reflecting from the open . " The fact that the Kraken Mare “ island ” were photographed at seeable and infrared wavelengths , as well as using radar , has raised hopes that more will be memorise about their nature than could be gleaned from the radar images of the original island alone .
Already the shorter wavelength image have ruled out one of the original theory . Since frozen hydrocarbons are denser than their liquid forms , Titan ’s equivalents of icebergs would be deluge , and it was suggest the Ligeia Mare specter might have been a icy body just below the airfoil . However , Soderblom says this , along with the possibleness of some sort of fog , can now now dismissed .
