New computer model about Moon Titan

Titan, Saturn's largest moon, is a strange and fascinating world covered in dense methane atmosphere. With an average surface temperature of -185ºC and a diameter less than half the Earth, Titan Moon shows clouds and methane mist and storms and lakes and liquid methane. Beyond the Earth, this moon is the only place in the solar system that contains large amounts of liquid on the surface.

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The origin of these features is still a big question for scientists. Now researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have developed a computer model of Titan's moon atmosphere and the cycle of methane, since many phenomena for the first time have been explained quite well. Tight and simple.

In particular, the model explains three difficult issues when observing the moon Titan. One of the strange cases observed in 2009, when researchers found that methane lakes tend to gather at the poles, and they noticed they were more in the northern hemisphere than sold. south bridge.

The second phenomenon is the latitudes near the equator of the Titan moon that are thought to be dry , with little lakes and no regular rain. But when the Huygens probe landed on Titan in 2005, it showed channels created by liquid methane, the ability created by rain. In 2009, researchers at the Caltech Institute discovered violent storms, which may have brought rain to the area considered dry.

Finally, scientists deciphered the third mystery when they noticed clouds observed during the last decade - in the summer of Titan's southern hemisphere - bunched around the southern central region. height. Scientists then came up with many ideas to explain these characteristics, but either their models cannot fully explain the images, or they rely on strange cycles such as super-welding volcanoes. exhaust methane to form clouds. In contrast, researchers at the Caltech Institute said that the computer model explains all observations with the basic and relatively easy-to-understand principles of atmospheric circulation.

'We have a unified explanation for all observable features without the need for super-volcanic volcanoes or anything that is mysterious,' said researcher Caltech Tapio Schneider.

Schneider said the team's simulations represent the distribution of clouds observed, something that previous models could not do. The new model also helped create an accurate distribution of lakes. He said methane tends to concentrate in lakes around the polar region because sunlight is weaker than average. Solar energy often makes liquid methane on evaporation surface, but sunlight in the polar region is generally weaker so methane is easier to liquefy and accumulates in lakes.

So why are there more lakes in the northern hemisphere? Schneider points out that Saturn's long slender orbit means the moon Titan is farther away from the sun than in the northern hemisphere's summer. Kepler's second law says that when it orbits the planet farther away from the Sun its speed also slows, meaning that the Titan moon moves more slowly at the far edge of elliptical orbit in the north of the northern region. . And like that, the northern summer is longer than the south. Also because summer is the rainy season on the two polar regions, the rainy season is longer in the north.

Even if the southern hemisphere's summer rains are stronger - due to the stronger impact of sunlight when Titan is closer to the Sun than in the summer of the south - but rain is still more intense throughout the year in the northern hemisphere. and create more lakes.

Overall, although Titan's weather was mild, the researchers said that the areas near the equator were especially gloomy. It may be years without a rain drop that makes these low latitudes become arid. Unexpectedly, after that, when Huygens discovered the evidence of the rain due to this terrain. The surprise was multiplied in 2009 when Schaller, Brown, Schneider and Henry Roe discovered that storms in the region were also thought to have no rain.

No one really understands how the storms formed, and the previous models have not created anything more than drizzle. The new model has recreated intense rains pouring down, during the Spring and Decimals of Titan, an amount of liquid methane enough to fill the type of channel that Huygens discovered. With this new model, scientists can now explain storms.'Rain is very rare in low latitudes. But once it rains, it will pour down violently, " Schneider said.

Unlike previous models, this new model is a 3-D model and can simulate the atmosphere of Titan's moon for 135 years - equivalent to 3000 years of Earth - and to achieve a stable state. determined. The model also associates the atmosphere with a reservoir of methane on the surface, simulating how methane circulates throughout the moon.

The model was successful in reproducing what scientists observed, but perhaps most interesting as Schneider once said, is that it can predict what scientists will see in the next few years. . For example, based on simulations, the researchers forecast that due to seasonal changes, the northern lake surface will gradually increase in the next 15 years. They also predict that clouds will form around the north pole in two years. Schneider said: 'Making verifiable predictions is a rare and beautiful opportunity in space science. In a few years, we'll know if they're right or wrong. "

'This is just the beginning ,' he added. 'Now we have a tool to study new science, we will do it and still do a lot'.