saturn's moon titan and neptune's triton are similar because they are geologically active.
saturn's moon titan and neptune's triton are similar because they are geologically active.
how are saturn's moon titan and neptune's triton similar?
geologically active
of the nineteen known natural satellites in the solar system that are large enough to have lapsed into hydrostatic equilibrium, several remain geologically active today. io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system, while europa, enceladus, titan and triton display evidence of ongoing tectonic activity and cryovolcanism. in the first three cases, the geological activity is powered by the tidal heating resulting from having eccentric orbits close to their giant-planet primaries. (this mechanism would have also operated on triton in the past, before its orbit was circularized.) many other natural satellites, such as earth's moon, ganymede, tethys and miranda, show evidence of past geological activity, resulting from energy sources such as the decay of their primordial radioisotopes, greater past orbital eccentricities (due in some cases to past orbital resonances), or the differentiation or freezing of their interiors. enceladus and triton both have active features resembling geysers, although in the case of triton solar heating appears to provide the energy. titan and triton have significant atmospheres; titan also has hydrocarbon lakes. four of the largest natural satellites, europa, ganymede, callisto, and titan, are thought to have subsurface oceans of liquid water, while smaller enceladus may have localized subsurface liquid water.
natural satellite
some satellite systems have been known to have gas interactions between objects. notable examples include the jupiter, saturn and pluto systems. the io plasma torus is a transfer of oxygen and sulfur from the tenuous atmosphere of jupiter's volcanic moon, io and other objects including jupiter and europa. a torus of oxygen and hydrogen produced by saturn's moon, enceladus forms part of the e ring around saturn. nitrogen gas transfer between pluto and charon has also been modelled and is expected to be observable by the new horizons space probe. similar tori produced by saturn's moon titan (nitrogen) and neptune's moon triton (hydrogen) is predicted.
satellite system (astronomy)