REAL LIFE NEWS: MOON RIVER
by Hazed
I’m going to have to add some new areas to the Titan map. The Cassini spacecraft has beamed images back to Earth that show a vast river system on the moon.
These high resolution images show a river system on the Saturnian moon which scientists say resembles the river Nile. It is more than 400km long and includes a spreading delta where it empties into a sea.
It’s not made up of water, though - this river comprises ethane and methane.
NASA announced the new images of the mini-Nile and said they also show something of the ground underneath: “Though there are some short, local meanders, the relative straightness of the river valley suggests it follows the trace of at least one fault, similar to other large rivers running into the southern margin of this same Titan sea,” said Jani Radebaugh, a Cassini radar team associate at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.
“Such faults - fractures in Titan’s bedrock -- may not imply plate tectonics, like on Earth, but still lead to the opening of basins and perhaps to the formation of the giant seas themselves.”
Check the source link below to see a picture of the river on Titan.
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/13/titan_mini_nile_cassini/
