Saturn’s largest moon may actually be two moons in one, contributing to the birth of the planet’s iconic rings.

Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, may be made up of two different moons that collided hundreds of millions of years ago, new research suggests. Confirmation of this epic collision could also help solve long-standing mysteries surrounding the gas giant, such as how its iconic ring formed.

Titan is the second largest moon in the solar system after Jupiter’s Ganymede. It has a diameter of about 3,200 miles (5,150 kilometers), about 1.5 times the width of Earth’s moon and about 5% the width of Mercury.

In addition to its massive size, Titan is famous for its atmosphere, which is made up primarily of nitrogen and is about 1.5 times thicker than Earth’s atmosphere. It is also the only celestial body in the solar system other than Earth that has been found to have liquid in the form of methane on its surface, making it a potential candidate for extraterrestrial life. The European Space Agency’s Huygens probe landed on Titan in 2005, making it the only moon other than Earth to have a spacecraft land on it.

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Previously, researchers believed that Titan, like most moons, formed billions of years ago as small chunks of rock and dust gradually accumulated. But researchers at the SETI Institute have shown in a new study, uploaded to the preprint server arXiv on February 9 and accepted for publication in a future planetary science journal, that this may not be the case.

Based on data collected by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which passed through Titan and deployed Huygens to the surface, the SETI team proposes that Titan may have formed about 400 million years ago when two similarly massive moons collided.

Researchers argue that this collision may have also created another of Saturn’s moons, Hyperion. The small satellite, about 84 miles (135 kilometers) wide, was likely formed from debris from an impact similar to how Earth’s moon was formed when the protoplanet Theia collided with Earth about 4.5 billion years ago.

Additionally, the new hypothesis may explain the unusual orbits of some of Saturn’s moons, the researchers said.

Saturn’s waning moon

Saturn has at least 274 moons, the most of any planet, with 128 recently discovered natural moons. But researchers have long suspected that another giant moon is missing.

Saturn’s orbit around the sun is highly tilted compared to other planets (aside from its unstable neighbor Uranus), which not only allows us to see Saturn’s unusual rings, but also suggests that something huge once pulled Saturn out of its place. The mysterious object was most likely a large satellite, which researchers had long suspected was thrown from Saturn by gravity.

In a new study, researchers investigated the possibility that the moon was destroyed rather than extinct.

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The “most important clue” that this other moon was destroyed is Hyperion, which is trapped in orbital resonance with Titan, making three orbits around Saturn for every four orbits of Titan.

“We realized that the Titan Hyperion sluices are relatively new, only a few hundred million years old,” study lead author and SETI researcher Matija Cukku said in a statement. “This dates back to around the same time that the extra moon disappeared. [So] Perhaps Hyperion did not survive this cataclysm, but rather was a result of it. ”

After simulating multiple scenarios using Cassini data, the researchers now believe that two giant moons, called Proto-Titan and Proto-Hyperion, collided with each other, forming Titan, and eventually Hyperion was born from the debris of a massive collision.

rings, orbits, cars

Hyperion may not be the only satellite created or affected by this potential collision.

Researchers suggest that this collision may have given rise to several other moons that slowly drifted towards Saturn, colliding with other pre-existing moons, creating a field of debris that eventually settled in Saturn’s rings about 100 million years ago. (This hypothesis contradicts recent research that suggested Saturn’s rings are much older than previously realized.)

The researchers also theorize that this collision could explain the unstable orbits of two of Saturn’s other moons, Iapetus and Rhea. These moons are significantly tilted relative to their surrounding moons, and are slightly in resonance with Titan’s orbit.

Additionally, their hypothesis could explain Titan’s surprising lack of impact craters. Because Titan is much younger than previously thought, it has been exposed to fewer meteorite impacts. The researchers propose that Prototitan may have been pockmarked before its creation, similar to Jupiter’s moon Callisto.

NASA is preparing to send the Dragonfly probe to visit and explore Titan. This drone-like spacecraft is scheduled to launch in 2028, which would allow it to reach the moon by 2034. Once it arrives, it could confirm the impact hypothesis and further unravel the mysteries left behind on the moon.