June 23: NASA and European Space Agency ESA combine Cassini mission recently suggested that, Saturn’s moon Titan possesses surface lakes and ocean similar to Earth.

A study recently reveals regarding the presence of surface lakes and even ocean in Saturn’s moon Titan. This was come to picture after using data from Cassini which was earlier launched jointly by NASA and European Space Agency ESA. Study indicates Earth like creation of sinkholes on the surface of Titan.

With this, Titan becomes the second body in our solar system after Earth with such geographical structure. With this data, scientists also calculated for the time duration takes for patches of Titan’s surface to dissolve to create these features.

Thomas Cornet from the European Space Agency said that, “We compared the erosion rates of organics in liquid hydrocarbons on Titan with those of carbonate and evaporate minerals in liquid water on Earth.”

Scientists have found that the time taken for dissolution process occurs on Titan is 30 times slower than that of Earth. This is due to longer length of its year and it rains only in summer. However, they also believe that this dissolution process is the primal factor behind origin of its lakes.

Thomas Cornet also added, “These are terrestrial landscapes that result from erosion of dissolvable rocks such as limestone and gypsum, in rainfall.”

ESA Cassini project scientist Nicolas Altobelli reported that, “By comparing Titan’s features with that of Earth and applying a few simple calculations, we have found similar land-shaping processes that could be operating under very different climate and chemical regimes.”