Menu

Search

  |   Science

Menu

  |   Science

Search

Saturn's moon Titan is slowly moving away, says scientists

WikiImages / Pixabay

Scientists have studied the ringed planet Saturn and its moons for decades. However, a recent discovery revealed that one of its moons, Titan, is slowly moving away from its planet.

Researchers have found that Titan is moving away from Saturn a lot faster than it was previously believed to be. Scientists made use of the data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which has monitored Saturn since 2004. As of late, Titan orbits Saturn from a distance of 759,000 miles, however, scientists believe that it was a lot closer to Saturn billions of years ago. This discovery suggests that the Solar System actually expanded faster than theorized. Scientists also found that the outer moons migrate at almost the same rate as the inner moons as they go into an orbit pattern that is connected to the wobble of the planet, thus bringing them outwards.

Saturn has 62 confirmed moons out of 150, and Titan is the biggest moon from those 62 moons. Because it is 886 million miles away from the Sun, the surface temperature on Titan would be around -179 degrees Celsius.

According to California Institute of Technology professor and co-author of the study Jim Fuller, “Most prior work had predicted that moons like Titan or Jupiter’s moon Callisto were formed at an orbital distance similar to where we see them now... This implies that the Saturnian moon system, and potentially its rings, have formed and evolved more dynamically than previously believed. “

Meanwhile, going back to Earth, space weather forecasters previously predicted that the planet is caught in a solar storm with solar winds hitting Earth at a rate of 1.5 million kilometers per hour or 425 kilometers per second. Researchers have revealed that these solar winds are coming from a hole in the Sun’s upper atmosphere. These solar winds that hit the Earth’s magnetic field would produce auroras in the polar regions of the planet - aurora borealis and aurora australis.

Auroras are just one of the side-effects of a solar storm, as the solar winds or particles may affect satellite-based technology such as GPS navigation and cable television. It may also cause power overloads, but this is a rare occurrence.

  • Market Data
Close

Welcome to EconoTimes

Sign up for daily updates for the most important
stories unfolding in the global economy.