Thanks to the efforts of NASA and its incredibly reliable Cassini spacecraft, we now know more about Saturn and its moons than ever before, but it seems there are still some surprises in store for scientists studying the planet and its natural satellites. New research by scientists at the University of Bristol has revealed an interesting quirk with Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, and it flies in the face of everything science has predicted.
It seems that Titan’s polar regions have a rather unpredictable personality, and observations made by Cassini have shown that an expected hot spot near Titan’s pole had rapidly turned into a frigid polar vortex. This stood in contrast to what previous observations suggested, especially considering the same spot had been seemingly getting hotter as recently as late 2009. Now, researchers think they have an explanation.
The current best guess for the strange behavior of Titan’s pole is that chemicals in its atmosphere are responsible for the chilly trend.
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