NASAのインスタグラム(nasa) - 9月22日 06時45分

Puzzle this: The appearance of an ice cloud seemingly out of thin air has prompted our scientists to suggest that a different process than previously thought -- possibly similar to one seen over Earth's poles -- could be forming clouds on Saturn's moon Titan.

Located in Titan's stratosphere, the cloud is made of a compound of carbon and nitrogen known as dicyanoacetylene (C4N2), an ingredient in the chemical cocktail that colors the giant moon's hazy, brownish-orange atmosphere.

Decades ago, the infrared instrument on our Voyager 1 spacecraft spotted an ice cloud just like this one on Titan. What has puzzled scientists ever since is this: they detected less than 1 percent of the dicyanoacetylene gas needed for the cloud to condense. Recent observations from our Cassini mission yielded a similar result. "The compositions of the polar stratospheres of Titan and Earth could not differ more," said Michael Flasar, a principal investigator at our Goddard Space Flight Center. "It is amazing to see how well the underlying physics of both atmospheres has led to analogous cloud chemistry." Seen here is a natural color view of Titan and Saturn from our Cassini spacecraft on May 6, 2012.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
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