Washington DC:
Volcano-like features were found in the polar regions of the Titan of Saturn’s moon by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. “The close association of the proposed volcanic craters with the polar lakes is compatible with volcanic origin through explosive eruptions followed by collapse, such as maars or calderas,” said scientist Charles A. Wood.
“The apparent freshness of some craters may mean that volcanism has been relatively recent active on Titan or even continues today,” added Wood.
Features such as nested collapses, raised ramparts, halos and islands indicate that some of the small depressions in the North Polar region of Titan are volcanic collapse craters, according to an article “Morphologic Evidence for Volcanic Craters near Titan ‘ ‘s North Polar Region “which appears in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets. Some similar depressions also occur near the south pole of Titan.
Many reliefs on the moon of Saturn Titan are like those found on Earth. This was revealed by the Cassini mission. There are sand dunes, river valleys and lakes. These characteristics are due to temperature differences on the planet’s surface due to the heat of the sun.
“We have demonstrated that there is also evidence of internal heat, manifesting on the surface in the form of cryovolcanoes, resulting from the melting of the ice crust into liquid water which bursts on the surface of Titan,” said M. Wood.
“These features are roughly round, with raised edges, and sometimes overlap. They are consistent with the shapes of other volcanic landforms on Earth and on Mars formed by explosion, excavation and collapse” , added the scientist.
