NASA: Cassini Finds Nile Miniature on Saturn Moon

NASA released the image of a river - which looks like a miniature version of the Nile - found by the Cassini spacecraft on the surface of Titan, Saturn's largest moon. According to the US agency, the water course is 400 kilometers long, this is the first time that images of a river system of such proportions and with such a good resolution outside our planet have been recorded.

According to NASA scientists, although the river has some meanders, it is practically straight and has a course in liquid form. However, Titan “Nile” is not composed of water, but hydrocarbons such as methane or ethane. Still according to the researchers, its almost straight trajectory indicates that the river probably follows a fracture present on the surface of the moon of Saturn.

As NASA explained, fractures like this do not imply the existence of a plate tectonics on Saturn, as it does on our planet. However, they can lead to the formation of basins and even large seas. Titan is the only known celestial body to date - beyond Earth - in which the presence of liquid in its stable form on the surface has already been detected.