{"id":1845,"date":"2012-08-24T17:25:55","date_gmt":"2012-08-24T12:25:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cawater-info.net\/all_about_water\/en\/?p=1845"},"modified":"2012-08-24T17:26:52","modified_gmt":"2012-08-24T12:26:52","slug":"saturns-foggy-moon-titan-has-oceans-of-water-sloshing-around-under-crust-of-ice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.cawater-info.net\/all_about_water\/en\/?p=1845","title":{"rendered":"Saturn’s foggy moon Titan has oceans of water ‘sloshing around’ under crust of ice"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A watery ocean may lie beneath the surface of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, scientists believe. Gravity measurements reveal deformations in Titan’s interior that suggest a layer of liquid \u2018sloshing around\u2019.<\/p>\n

The ocean is thought to be made of water with a depth of a couple of hundred kilometres. It appears to cover the entire moon beneath 100 kilometres of ice.<\/p>\n

The evidence comes from the American space agency Nasa’s probe Cassini, which made six fly-bys of Titan between 2006 and 2011.<\/p>\n

Scientists used signals beamed back by Cassini to measure distortions in Titan’s gravitational field.<\/p>\n

The data showed something strange happening in the moon’s interior which indicated the presence of liquid water.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Writing in the journal Science, the planetary experts led by Dr Luciano Iess, from La Sapienza University in Rome, concluded: \u2018Such a large response to the tidal field requires that Titan’s interior is deformable over time scales of the orbital period, in a way that is consistent with a global ocean at depth.\u2019<\/p>\n

Titan is now believed to belong to an elite \u2018club\u2019 of moons with sub-surface oceans. Other members include Jupiter’s moons Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.<\/p>\n

Scientists have speculated about the possibility of life evolving in the hidden oceans. But there are doubts about whether anything could survive on icy Titan.<\/p>\n

In a news story accompanying the research paper, Science writer Richard Kerr says: \u2018Inside Europa, planetary scientists believe hot springs on a rocky ocean floor may be belching all the nutrients and inorganic building blocks required by life.<\/p>\n

\u2018But other kinds of gravity studies show that Titan has a cold, icy ocean floor, so no hot water can be leaching life-giving chemicals into the ocean.\u2019<\/p>\n

Source: http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A watery ocean may lie beneath the surface of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, scientists believe. Gravity measurements reveal deformations in Titan’s interior that suggest a layer of liquid \u2018sloshing around\u2019. The ocean is thought to be made of water with a depth of a couple of hundred kilometres. It appears to cover the entire moon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cawater-info.net\/all_about_water\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1845"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cawater-info.net\/all_about_water\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cawater-info.net\/all_about_water\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cawater-info.net\/all_about_water\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cawater-info.net\/all_about_water\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.cawater-info.net\/all_about_water\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1845\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cawater-info.net\/all_about_water\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cawater-info.net\/all_about_water\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cawater-info.net\/all_about_water\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}