CAVES ON SATURN’S MOON TITAN

Saturn’s moon Titan has the potential to be a karstic wonderland. The large amounts of organic materials on the upper surface of Titan, most of which are soluble to methane and ethane which play similar roles to water in Earth’s climate system, make it likely that subsurface conduits have formed through dissolution in a manner similar to karstic processes on Earth. Using Cassini spacecraft Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data, we have recently surveyed and identified different terrains and locations on Titan that could host potential subsurface access points or caves based on morphologic similarity to terrestrial cave-bearing terrains and surface features. These terrains and features included: a cryovolcanic construct, filled and empty lake basins that may have formed through karstic processes, estimates of closed valleys in organic plateaux, and enigmatic equatorial pits. Our preliminary survey identified over 21,000 estimated locations for future exploration to identify potential caves and cave-forming processes on Titan. Future exploration of these locations could inform us about key landscape evolution proceses, as well as the past climactic history and perhaps even chemical deposition history on Titan.