Waves may ripple across methane seas of Saturn’s moon Titan

Ars Technica : Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, is the only other object besides Earth known to have stable bodies of liquid on its surface. Despite atmospheric temperatures averaging −180 °C, Titan is dotted with lakes filled with liquid methane and ethane. Using images captured by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, scientists say they have been watching a transient island-like feature, which periodically brightens and dims, in the second largest of Titan’s lakes, Ligeia Mare. Probably caused by surface waves, the phenomenon is not an isolated one; other transient “islands” have been seen in another of Titan’s seas, Kraken Mare. Because of the apparent dynamic activity and the fact that Titan is full of organic molecules, Charles Elachi of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory says the moon could host “weird life” unlike anything we have seen.