A Titan-ic Success : Lakes on another planetary body

Some of the most important questions must remain unanswered.

Well, not anymore. Scientists have found a way to look past the clouds of Titan, Saturn's largest moon. We were already aware of the existence of clouds on Titan and its dense atmosphere. This made it difficult for us to observe its surface, which is predicted to be filled with lakes, seas, rivers, and oceans of liquid hydrocarbons and water. 

Now, with the help of JWST, it is possible to observe the surface features of Titan far better than the Cassini spacecraft.

Images of Titan, Saturn's moon, captured by JWST.

On Titan, methane is locked as ice on the ocean's crust, filled with liquid water and ammonia. The Infra-Red cameras on the Webb Telescope captured images of clouds on the Northern Hemisphere of Titan.

What do these clouds tell us? They give us more information about the climate on Titan. It also confirms our previous assumptions based on computer models. From here, we also look forward to observing the change in position and shape of the clouds on Titan; this will tell us more about the airflow there. 

As the future endeavour, the NIRCam and NIRSpec, as well as the Mid Infrared Instrument on Webb's Telescope, will be describing the surface and lower atmosphere compositions and Titan's spectrum.  

- Namitha (MS22118)