NASA has studied Titan, with its Cassini mission finding that the moon was “so cold than seas and lakes of liquid methane and than form on its surface”, author Laurence Tognetti noted last month.
Mr Tognetti, who penned the 2019 book Outer Solar System Moons: Your Personal 3D Journey, explored how “underneath Titan’s rock-hard water ice crust, the moon also harbours an ocean of liquid water that could potentially host life”.
He outlined how the Belgian university was able to build a greater understanding of Titan using “state-of-the-art numerical models” that allowed them to simulate going 60 miles deep into the moon’s oceans.
Mr Tognetti wrote: “While Earth’s ocean tides rise and fall due to the influence of our moon’s gravity, on other celestial bodies where liquid oceans are internal, such as on Titan, tidal motions are influenced by other forces.
“These primarily include the subsurface ocean’s depth and the presence of an outer ice shell that presses down on the internal ocean, creating tides and currents and the gyres that drive them. So, how does Titan’s ice shell affect the tidal motions of its subsurface ocean?”
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