NASA's Cassini spacecraft has discovered a "mysterious feature"
on Saturn's moon Titan. Scientists are working to determine, what,
exactly, this feature might be.
NASA reports
that the feature is roughly 100 square miles, and it lies in Ligeia
Mare, one of Titan's hydrocarbon seas. Cassini's radar has observed the
feature twice, but its appearance changed between the two sightings.
Scientists suspect the feature's change in appearance could be the
result of Titan's changing seasons, which Cassini's current extended
mission will monitor.
The feature's first sighting was in July 2013, and the radar images
depicted a bright spot, which stood out from the dark sea. Scientists
were "perplexed" when the feature couldn't be located with follow-up
radar experiments, but they found it again on August 21, 2014.
Though the scientists aren't sure what the feature is, NASA reports
that they are "confident" the feature is not a "flaw in their data."
Some of their current explanations for the feature include "surface
waves, rising bubbles, floating solids, solids suspended just below the
surface, or perhaps something more exotic."
Titan's hydrocarbon lakes have long been a source of curiosity for
scientists who speculate that life may be able to survive on the moon's
surface. "But if life exists on Titan, it would be very different than
life on Earth, which is intimately tied to liquid water,"
Space.com notes.
"Science loves a mystery, and with this enigmatic feature, we have a
thrilling example of ongoing change on Titan," Stephen Wall, the deputy
team lead of Cassini's radar team,
said in a statement.
"We're hopeful that we'll be able to continue watching the changes
unfold and gain insights about what's going on in that alien sea."
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