Cryovolcanic features on Titan's surface as revealed by the Cassini Titan Radar Mapper

Ground-based radar observations of Titan: 2000–2008

“…New evidence, particularly from Cassini, demonstrates this is truer than was expected with observations providing evidence for wind processes (Radebaugh et al, 2008;Lorenz et al, 2006), continuing erosion Barnes et al, 2007b;Elachi et al, 2006), clouds (Brown et al, 2002;Griffith et al, 1998), and even apparent liquid bodies (Stofan et al, 2007). Changes due to an active methane cycle (Turtle et al, 2009) and possible recent cryovolcanic activity (Lopes et al, 2007;Wall et al, 2009) further strengthens the Earth-like parallels. As a result of these processes Titan is covered by a wide variety of landscapes from deserts to drainage systems to suspected volcanic areas.…”

Heavy ion formation in Titan's ionosphere: Magnetospheric introduction of free oxygen and a source of Titan's aerosols?

“…Complex chemistry of prebiotic and even biotic interest could occur as oxygen-laden aerosol particulates precipitate to any surface hot spots associated with local cryovolcanism (Sotin et al, 2005;Lopes et al, 2007;Nelson et al, 2008) and where liquid water might be present near the surface.…”

“…It has been suggested that methanogenic life with this liquid ocean could be the source of Titan's methane which has a lifetime less than 100 Myrs (Fortes, 2000;McKay and Smith, 2005). This liquid water and heat, via the cryovolcanism that may have been observed (see Lopes et al, 2007;Neish et al, 2006), can then allow exobiological processes occur, especially if free oxygen is present. The observation of lakes by Cassini radar (Stotan et al, 2007), presents another tantalizing possibility for exobiological processes occurring at Titan.…”

Isotopic differentiation and sublattice melting in dense dynamic ice

“…14 Tritium is produced by various reactions in nuclear reactors but also, for instance, by highly energetic cosmic neutron rays interacting with nitrogen in the upper atmosphere. 15,16 It may be pertinent to ask whether the extreme conditions of pressure we study (while certainly present in nature, e.g., in the interior of giant planets 17 and possibly involved in exotic phenomena such as icy volcanoes 18 ) are accessible to experiments. It should then be pointed out that current experimental capabilities in static compression using diamond anvil cells have reached the 0.3 TPa range (for some systems, as high as 0.6 TPa 19 ), that neutron diffraction on ice samples is possible up to about 0.1 TPa (100 GPa), 20 and that shock wave compression experiments have reached the multi-TPa pressure regime (albeit along the Hugoniot, which is at very high temperatures).…”