Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

James Webb and Keck Observatory see clouds on Saturn’s moon Titan

Georgina Torbet
By

Researchers using the James Webb Space Telescope and the W. M. Keck Observatory have teamed up to study Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, and observe the way that clouds move around it. Early preview results of this research have now been released, which have not yet been peer-reviewed.

By bringing together space-based observations and ground-based observations, researchers were able to see how the clouds changed. Webb gathered data in the infrared using its Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument, and Keck provided confirmation images also in the near-infrared two days later. “We were concerned that the clouds would be gone when we looked at Titan one and two days later with Keck, but to our delight there were clouds at the same positions, looking like they might have changed in shape,” said Keck researcher Imke de Pater in a statement.

Near-infrared Images of Saturn’s moon Titan, as seen by JWST on November 4, 2022 (left), followed by Keck Observatory’s NIRC2 instrument paired with adaptive optics on November 6, 2022 (middle) and November 7, 2022 (right).
Near-infrared Images of Saturn’s moon Titan, as seen by JWST on November 4, 2022 (left), followed by Keck Observatory’s NIRC2 instrument paired with adaptive optics on November 6, 2022 (middle) and November 7, 2022 (right). NASA/STScI/W. M. Keck Observatory/Judy Schmidt

The researchers were hoping to learn about Titan’s climate, and they found that there were large clouds in the moon’s northern hemisphere. “Detecting clouds is exciting because it validates long-held predictions from computer models about Titan’s climate, that clouds would form readily in the mid-northern hemisphere during its late summertime when the surface is warmed by the Sun,” said lead researcher Conor Nixon. Some of these clouds are located near Kraken Mare, a sea of liquid methane on the moon’s surface.

Recommended Videos

Titan is of interest to astronomers because of its thick atmosphere, and because it has lakes, rivers, and oceans on its surface. But unlike Earth, these features are made of liquid methane rather than water. The amount of liquid means that Titan could even be a place to look for signs of life, and there is interest in sending a submarine probe there.

Related

There are also plans to send a rotorcraft called Dragonfly to explore the moon, currently set for launch in 2027. Observations like these recent ones from Webb and Keck help prepare the way for this mission.

“This is some of the most exciting data we have seen of Titan since the end of the Cassini-Huygens mission in 2017, and some of the best we will get before NASA’s Dragonfly arrives in 2032,” said Dragonfly’s principal investigator, Zibi Turtle. “The analysis should really help us to learn a lot about Titan’s atmosphere and meteorology.”

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Georgina Torbet
Georgina Torbet
Space Writer
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
James Webb captures a unique view of Uranus’s ring system
This image of Uranus from NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows the planet and its rings in new clarity. The Webb image exquisitely captures Uranus’s seasonal north polar cap, including the bright, white, inner cap and the dark lane in the bottom of the polar cap. Uranus’ dim inner and outer rings are also visible in this image, including the elusive Zeta ring—the extremely faint and diffuse ring closest to the planet.

A festive new image from the James Webb Space Telescope has been released, showing the stunning rings of Uranus. Although these rings are hard to see in the visible light wavelength -- which is why you probably don't think of Uranus as having rings like Saturn -- these rings shine out brightly in the infrared wavelength that Webb's instruments operate in.

The image was taken using Webb's NIRCam instrument and shows the rings in even more detail than a previous Webb image of Uranus, which was released earlier this year.

Read more
James Webb spots tiniest known brown dwarf in stunning star cluster
The central portion of the star cluster IC 348. Astronomers combed the cluster in search of tiny, free-floating brown dwarfs.

A new image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows a stunning view of a star cluster that contains some of the smallest brown dwarfs ever identified. A brown dwarf, also sometimes known as a failed star, is an object halfway between a star and a planet -- too big to be a planet but not large enough to sustain the nuclear fusion that defines a star.

It may sound surprising, but the definition of when something stops being a planet and starts being a star is, in fact, a little unclear. Brown dwarfs differ from planets in that they form like stars do, collapsing due to gravity, but they don't sustain fusion, and their size can be comparable to large planets. Researchers study brown dwarfs to learn about what makes the difference between these two classes of objects.

Read more
James Webb provides a second view of an exploded star
A new high-definition image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) unveils intricate details of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A), and shows the expanding shell of material slamming into the gas shed by the star before it exploded. The most noticeable colors in Webb’s newest image are clumps of bright orange and light pink that make up the inner shell of the supernova remnant. These tiny knots of gas, comprised of sulfur, oxygen, argon, and neon from the star itself, are only detectable by NIRCam’s exquisite resolution, and give researchers a hint at how the dying star shattered like glass when it exploded.

When massive stars run out of fuel and come to the ends of their lives, their final phase can be a massive explosion called a supernova. Although the bright flash of light from these events quickly fades, other effects are longer-lasting. As the shockwaves from these explosions travel out into space and interact with nearby dust and gas, they can sculpt beautiful objects called supernova remnants.

One such supernova remnant, Cassiopeia A, or Cas A, was recently imaged using the James Webb Space Telescope's NIRCam instrument. Located 11,000 light-years away in the constellation of Cassiopeia, it is thought to be a star that exploded 340 years ago (as seen from Earth) and it is now one of the brightest radio objects in the sky. This view shows the shell of material thrown out by the explosion interacting with the gas that the massive star gave off in its last phases of life.

Read more