Scientists are puzzling over the huge amounts of ice on Saturn's biggest moon

Years after NASA's Cassini spacecraft finished its mission to observe Saturn, we're still learning more from the data it sent back. This time, new analysis reveals something we've never noticed before from Titan, the largest moon that orbits our sixth planet.

The research, published on Monday in Nature Astronomy, suggests that Titan doesn't just have ice in scattered patches along its surface, as we've observed before. Beyond that, scientists discovered a massive block that stretches across a large part of the satellite: nearly 4,000 miles long.

This huge amount of ice runs halfway across the middle of Titan, like a belt, Space explained. And because the data Cassini collected was limited, scientists have no idea what sort of "geologic feature" could be lurking beneath all that frozen water.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Sign up

Titan is, in many ways, an "eerie twist" on Earth — it has a nitrogen-rich atmosphere, and liquid rain that fills its lakes and seas, just like we do. But Titan is so cold that all its water is frozen — which means the rain isn't water, but other compounds that would be gases here on Earth. That can sometimes make Titan a difficult place to study from so far away. For this research, scientists used a new technique that allowed them to look past the most dominant features of their data and pay closer attention to what was hidden behind them.

Learn more about all Cassini is still teaching us at Space.