Mystery patch found floating on Titan’s seas

Guest post by Christopher Crockett

Something’s playing hide-and-seek in one of the methane seas on Titan, the largest of Saturn’s moons. New radar images from the Cassini spacecraft show a bright patch, roughly 20 kilometers on a side, pop up near the shoreline — and then disappear.

Planetary scientists think that the mystery blemish may be wind-driven waves, bubbles from the deep or siltlike deposits floating up from the seafloor. Researchers may be getting a first peek at seasonal changes as summer approaches on Titan’s northern hemisphere, the team suggests June 22 in Nature Geoscience.