Caltech scientists explain puzzling lake asymmetry on Titan
Sunday, November 29, 2009 - 23:14
in Astronomy & Space
PASADENA, Calif. -- Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) suggest that the eccentricity of Saturn's orbit around the sun may be responsible for the unusually uneven distribution of methane and ethane lakes over the northern and southern polar regions of the planet's largest moon, Titan. On Earth, similar "astronomical forcing" of climate drives ice-age cycles.