Sunday, March 29, 2009

Ice volcanoes on Titan


3D radar images of Saturn's moon Titan show sinuous structures up to 200 meters tall that may be slushy water and ammonia 'lava' flows erupted from volcanoes that tap into possible shallow buried ocean. The images were presented by Randolph Kirk of the USGS in Flagstaff AZ at the Lunar & Planetary Science Conference in Houston this past week, and reported in New Scientist. [right, possible ice-ammonia volcano dome on Titan. Credit, USGS/JPL/NASA]