Mountains on Saturn's Moon Show Earth-like Erosion

The mountains on Titan, Saturn's largest moon and the only moon in the solar system with a thick atmosphere, show evidence of erosion.

Photo: Cassini-Huygens Mission / NASA

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Astronomers examining new radar images of Saturn's moon, Titan, have discovered evidence of vast river systems that carved mountains in a way previously thought only to have occurred on Earth, according to the Deseret Morning News. The rivers and lakes, though, are made of liquid methane and ethane, and the mountains of rock-solid ice.

The images come from the Cassini orbiter, which is circling Saturn and passing by its moons. Titan is the second-largest moon in the Solar System, and the only one with a heavy atmosphere. Titan's mountains appear to have been carved and sculpted by erosion by liquids.

Ten times more distant from the Sun than Earth, and too cold for life as we know it (minus-290 degrees is a tad chilly), Titan still holds surprising similarities to Earth, at least as far as topography and atmospheric pressure are concerned.

"Despite centuries of speculation and decades of research, scientists are still seeking fundamental clues to the question of how life began on Earth. Titan is the frozen vault that may contain these secrets for the Cassini-Huygens mission to discover," NASA's Cassini-Huygens page reads. "The study of Titan is one of the major goals of the Cassini-Huygens mission because it may preserve, in deep-freeze, many of the chemical compounds that preceded life on Earth."

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