Mysterious object in Titan Lake

[BMAONE23]

An un-as-yet-identified object has been seen in images of one of Titan's lakes

Astronomers have named the blob the "magic island" until they have a better idea what they are looking at. "We can't be sure what it is yet because we only have the one image, but it's not something you would normally see on Titan," said Jason Hofgartner, a planetary scientist at Cornell University in New York. "It is not something that has been there permanently."

Click to view full size image

More at The Guardian

[orin stepanek]

Notice the difference in lighting? I think it is submerged land that only shows up when the light hits it right! The lake is probably fairly shallow! IMHO!

[geckzilla]

Not sure I follow your reasoning, orin, but it's a fascinatingly dynamic moon for sure.

[neufer]

Among the explanations from the [Cassini] team are:

• 1) Northern hemisphere winds may be kicking up and forming waves on Ligeia Mare. The radar imaging system might see the waves as a kind of “ghost” island. Scientists previously have seen what they think are waves in another nearby Titan sea, Punga Mare.
  
  2) Gases may push out from the sea floor of Ligeia Mare, rising to the surface as bubbles.
  
  3) Sunken solids formed by a wintry freeze could become buoyant with the onset of the late Titan spring warmer temperatures.
  
  4) Suspended solids in Ligeia Mare, which are neither sunken nor floating, but act like silt in a terrestrial delta.

[BMAONE23]

Another possibility might be the methane cycle. As the liquid Methane of the lake evaporates, the lake level drops and exposes a small islet. This methane is then rained down upon the surrounding area and runs off into the lake submersing the islet again. It could be a seasonal feature

[Viperone]

I would expect a fantastic tides due to Jupiters immense gravity.

[geckzilla]

Titan is a satellite of Saturn.

[neufer]

I would expect a fantastic tides due to Jupiters immense gravity.

Titan is a satellite of Saturn.

Titan has a tiny eccentricity (0.0288) and is tidally locked with Saturn.

Therefore, Titan only experiences about the same sort of periodic tidal forces that the Moon induces upon the Earth.

(Besides... we are just talking about lakes in Titan's polar regions.)

[BMAONE23]

More at The Guardian

Looking again at the images, I note other changes visible in the smaller land mass on the left of the images. It also appears to have increased land space where the lake darkness once was

[rstevenson]

The angle of incidence of the light is different too, which may be enough to explain the appearance of the "island."

Rob