Canyons in Titan's southern latitudes. Credit: NASA/JPL

Considering the variety of Saturn's moons, it would be difficult to identify them as members of the same family. They vary in size, chemical composition, temperature, and appearance. However, superficial appearances are often misleading when it comes to overall qualities or characteristics. Powerful electromagnetic connections with their giant parent planet indicate they share common traits.

A recent press release states that a gravity map of Titan, created by monitoring changes in the Cassini orbiter's speed as it flew by the giant moon between February 2006 and July 2008, shows that its interior is a mixture of rock and ice with no layering. The orbital variations were measured by the Earth-based Deep Space Network as Titan's gravity "pushed and pulled" Cassini in its flight path. Analyzing those gravitational tics provides data for computer models of Titan's core.

Since the variations in gravity suggest a variation in density, and that variation is so subtle, there are no "mascons" of rock distributed through Titan's body as there are inside Earth's Moon. Instead, the rocks and ice are thought to be compacted into a relatively homogeneous interior structure.

As written in previous Picture of the Day articles, many of Titan's anomalies can be explained if a youthful aspect is considered. Titan might be only a few thousand years old and not the billions of years required by conventional astrophysics. If that is the case, then the presence of its dense atmosphere, lacking a mechanism for replenishment, can be attributed to that youth. Since Titan is relatively young, its atmosphere is not in equilibrium. It is losing methane at a measurable rate. That atmospheric loss requires methane production somewhere on or in the moon's body if it is ancient.

The canyons and "rilles" on Titan's surface are thought to be “drainage channels” from the methane rains that must periodically fall to feed the “rivers,” although no precipitation was detected. However, in an Electric Universe the canyons are blast marks etched into Titan’s surface from tremendous lightning discharges. They point to the moon's savage electrical birth. Their dendritic forms are called Lichtenberg figures, which look like some river systems on Earth.

That recent electrical birth, possibly resulting from a double layer overload within Saturn, also explains Titan's homogeneous core. Electric Universe theory proposes that the progeny of stars or planets are not all born at the same time as the parent. They are born hierarchically at intervals, and typically from within the parent. They are ejected.

If Titan was ejected from Saturn in a paroxysm, then its atmosphere and surface features are the results of that catastrophic event. Its interior could be electrically charged, either from a continuous circuit connection with Saturn or because it retains a remanent discharging current flow. Possibly both. The small effects on Cassini could be electrical in nature.

Are concepts of a “slushy core” or a “rocky interior” outdated premises? Do the deep places of planets and moons possess double layers? If so, the "gravitational effects" on Cassini could indicate that Titan is exerting an electric force on the spacecraft.

Stephen Smith

New DVD
The Lightning-Scarred Planet Mars

A video documentary that could change everything you thought you knew about ancient times and symbols. In this second episode of Symbols of an Alien Sky, David Talbott takes the viewer on an odyssey across the surface of Mars. Exploring feature after feature of the planet, he finds that only electric arcs could produce the observed patterns. The high resolution images reveal massive channels and gouges, great mounds, and crater chains, none finding an explanation in traditional geology, but all matching the scars from electric discharge experiments in the laboratory. (Approximately 85 minutes)

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