This Giant Moon of Saturn Has Yet Another Strange Similarity to Earth

Compared to most places in the Solar System, the giant moon of Saturn is strangely familiar to Earth.

The only moon in the Solar System with a dense atmosphere is Titan, which provides a number of quasi-Earth-like weather phenomena, such as methane rainfall, which feeds rivers and lakes.

While much of the landscape of the moon is very different from Earth, other aspects such as the towering sand dunes pose a different problem.

The chemistry of the sand dunes on Earth is different than the chemistry of the sand on Titan.

The mosaic of Titan was imaged by NASA. The University of Arizona is a part of NASA.

A team of researchers, led by planetary geologist Mathieu Lap, explain that theediments on the moon are mostly weak organic grains that are prone to rapid abrasion into dust.

The sand particles in Titan's dunes should become fine and fine until they eventually grind away to dust.

The light dust would eventually become so fine that it would blow away in the atmosphere and not be able to form cohesive structures like giant dunes.

Grains collide with each other and with the surface as winds transport them.

Due to the presence of huge sand dunes on Titan, the researchers suggest that some unknown growth mechanism, capable of fortifying the grains and counteracting the abrasion forces, must be playing out on the moon.

It has been going on for a long time.

The team writes that the dunes have likely been active for hundreds of thousands of years.

The scientists propose that the mechanism might be inspired by the small, rounded grains found on the sea floor.

Ooids are accretionary formations that build up from smaller particles in the marine environment, unlike most other forms of sand.

According to the researchers, a similar phenomenon could explain the existence of Titan's own organic sediment, which could allow the particles to sinter together into fused clumps, counter the simultaneous force of abrasion, and maintain particles at an equilibrium size.

It readily permits the formation of active sand dunes at equatorial latitudes, with some dust production, but no significant dust accumulation due to the sintering of dust grains into sand over time, according to the researchers.

We have an active sedimentary cycle that can explain the latitudinal distribution of landscapes, just like on Earth and what used to be the case on Mars.

While the team acknowledges their explanation for Titan's sedimentary cycle is only a hypothesis for now, they are confident it is a match for what we see on this strangely familiar scenario.

We were able to understand why there could have been sand dunes for so long even though the materials are weak.

It is fascinating to think about how different and similar the alternative world is.

The findings are reported in a journal.