Titan’s mysterious atmosphere
For the SwRI and Carnegie experiments, the scientists set out to better understand how Titan maintains its thick nitrogen-rich atmosphere. The team published their findings in a paper in the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta.
Titan, the second-largest moon in our solar system after Jupiter’s Ganymede, has a denser atmosphere than Earth. Ever since it was first discovered in 1944, scientists have pondered and investigated the evolution of Titan’s atmosphere.
“While just 40 percent the diameter of the Earth, Titan has an atmosphere 1.5 times as dense as the Earth’s, even with a lower gravity,” SwRI’s Dr. Kelly Miller, lead author of the paper, explained in a press statement. “Walking on the surface of Titan would feel a bit like scuba diving.”