images

Lightning on Titan

by

Walter B. Myers/Novapix

Reference

a-sat99-00307

Date

2009-02-28

A brilliant flash of titanian lightning illuminates towering clouds of methane while human visitors retire to the safety and warmth of their landing craft.
In January 2005, the European Space Agency's Huygens probe detected what may have been electrical discharges due to lightning when it descended through Titan's deep atmosphere (the probe also carried a microphone in hopes of recording the sound of thunder, however none was heard). While Titan's atmosphere may indeed host thunder and lightning, there's been no indication (yet) that there are earthlike cumulous clouds like the ones depicted here.