On Saturn’s moon Titan, plentiful lakeside views, but with liquid methane

Ligeia Mare, the second largest known body of liquid on Saturn's moon Titan, shown in data obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, is pictured in this NASA handout image released January 17, 2018. NASA/Handout via REUTERS

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists on Monday provided the most comprehensive look to date at one of the solar system’s most exotic features: prime lakeside property in the northern polar region of Saturn’s moon Titan – if you like lakes made of stuff like liquid methane.

Using data obtained by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft before that mission ended in 2017 with a deliberate plunge into Saturn, the scientists found that some of frigid Titan’s lakes of liquid hydrocarbons in this region are surprisingly deep while others may be shallow and seasonal.

Titan and Earth are the solar system’s two places with standing bodies of liquid on the surface. Titan boasts lakes, rivers and seas of hydrocarbons: compounds of hydrogen and carbon like those that are the main components of petroleum and natural gas.

The researchers described landforms akin to mesas towering above the nearby landscape, topped with liquid lakes more than 300 feet (100 meters) deep comprised mainly of methane. The scientists suspect the lakes formed when surrounding bedrock chemically dissolved and collapsed, a process that occurs with a certain type of lake on Earth.

The scientists also described “phantom lakes” that during wintertime appeared to be wide but shallow ponds – perhaps only a few inches (cm) deep – but evaporated or drained into the surface by springtime, a process taking seven years on Titan.

The findings represented further evidence about Titan’s hydrological cycle, with liquid hydrocarbons raining down from clouds, flowing across its surface and evaporating back into the sky. This is comparable to Earth’s water cycle.

Because of Titan’s complex chemistry and distinctive environments, scientists suspect it potentially could harbor life, in particular in its subsurface ocean of water, but possibly in the surface bodies of liquid hydrocarbons.

“Titan is a very fascinating object in the solar system, and every time we look carefully at the data we find out something new,” California Institute of Technology planetary scientist Marco Mastrogiuseppe said.

Titan, with a diameter of 3,200 miles (5,150 km), is the solar system’s second largest moon, behind only Jupiter’s Ganymede. It is bigger than the planet Mercury.

“Titan is the most Earth-like body in the solar system. It has lakes, canyons, rivers, dune fields of organic sand particles about the same size as silica sand grains on Earth,” Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory planetary scientist Shannon MacKenzie said.

The research was published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

(Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

Nations Approve Landmark Climate Change Deal

A group of 195 nations has reached an unprecedented agreement on global climate change.

Delegates from the nations had spent the past two weeks at the COP21 conference in Paris, working to finalize details on a pact aimed at scaling back global greenhouse gas emissions.

On Saturday, they announced they had come to a consensus.

The conference was aimed at preventing average global temperatures from reaching 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above their counterparts during the Industrial Revolution, when greenhouse gas emissions surged. Scientists have publicly warned that eclipsing that long-feared threshold could yield catastrophic results, including massive flooding and droughts.

The nations agreed they would try to do even better and set a goal of keeping temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), which provides more of a buffer.

“We have entered a new era of global cooperation on one of the most complex issues ever to confront humanity,” U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said in a statement. “For the first time, every country in the world has pledged to curb emissions, strengthen resilience and join in common cause to take common climate action. This is a resounding success for multilateralism.”

There’s still some work to be done before the agreement takes effect. It must be individually ratified by 55 countries that produce at least 55 percent of global carbon emissions. And there’s also work to be done before the world feels the effects of the Paris Agreement, as each nation must develop plans to cap its individual emissions as soon as possible and keep reducing them.

U.N. officials said in a news release that 188 countries have already submitted so-called climate action plans toward the Paris Agreement. Now, the countries will be required to submit new plans every five years. Those plans are required to become gradually more proactive over time, with nations working to further reduce emissions to keep temperatures below the feared levels.

But the agreement wasn’t universally hailed. Some climate change activists wanted to see a quicker transition away from fossil fuels and towards clean energy like wind and solar power.

“Every government seems now to recognize that the fossil fuel era must end and soon. But the power of the fossil fuel industry is reflected in the text, which drags out the transition so far that endless climate damage will be done,” Bill McKibben, the co-founder of 350.org, said in a statement. “Since pace is the crucial question now, activists must redouble our efforts to weaken that industry. This didn’t save the planet but it may have saved the chance of saving the planet.”