Abstract
Titan was once thought to have global oceans of light hydrocarbons on its surface1,2,3,4,5, but after 40 close flybys of Titan by the Cassini spacecraft, it has become clear that no such oceans exist6. There are, however, features similar to terrestrial lakes and seas7, and widespread evidence for fluvial erosion8,9, presumably driven by precipitation of liquid methane from Titan’s dense, nitrogen-dominated atmosphere10. Here we report infrared spectroscopic data, obtained by the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer11 (VIMS) on board the Cassini spacecraft, that strongly indicate that ethane, probably in liquid solution with methane, nitrogen and other low-molecular-mass hydrocarbons, is contained within Titan’s Ontario Lacus.
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Brown, R., Soderblom, L., Soderblom, J. et al. The identification of liquid ethane in Titan’s Ontario Lacus. Nature 454, 607–610 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07100
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07100
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