I’m just beginning to trawl through the Titan abstracts and here’s a subject that has already caught my eye: Fossil dunes on Titan. Two abstracts that discuss them below. They are the main topic of the first and make an intriguing cameo appearance in the second.
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2012/pdf/2224.pdfhttp://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2012/pdf/2759.pdfSee the The ‘Results’ section of 2759. SAR stereo appears to show in one area dunes that are 100-200 metres
lower than the bright inter-dune strips between them. The authors preface this announcement with the phrase “Much to our surprise” – understandably! It appears that Titan has played yet another wild card. They set out four possible explanations for the surprise, but my favourite is that the currently active sands overlie an area of fossil dunes.
Questions abound, as is usually the case with surprising new data.