Cassini saw the undulating dunes on Titan

Cassini saw the undulating dunes on Titan

Saturn's satellite is filled with secret and alien landscapes, but as shown by the last flyby of Titan, some surface structures have terrestrial features.

Although the dense atmosphere of Titan blows weakly at a speed of about 1 meter per second, this is enough to form extensive eolian (wind-formed) structures. Along with Mars, Titan can be considered the “World of the Dunes”, where about 13 percent of the satellite’s surface is filled with dune plains.

However, these dunes are not formed from the same material that we used to see in ourselves. On Earth, the dunes are formed from silicate sand. On Titan, it consists of tiny dry grains of hydrocarbons — organic compounds that support the hypothesis of potential life on a satellite. Observation data on the dunes of Titan were obtained on the basis of a radar cartographic image made by Cassini on July 10, 2013. The spacecraft flew over the satellite at a distance of only 599 miles (964 kilometers).

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