LARGE stretches of dunes seen on Saturn’s satellite Titan are providing clues to the weather on the surface of the giant moon. Because they resemble terrestrial sand dunes, it seems likely that similar weather processes formed them, though the dunes on Titan probably consist of particles of water ice or organic matter, not sand.
Dunes cover about 5 per cent of Earth’s land surface, and have also been seen on Mars and Venus. Now radar observations by the Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn show dunes stretching across hundreds of kilometres on Titan. The dunes are about 150 metres high and are lined up in rows,…
