Overview
- A peer‑reviewed Nature study led by NASA’s JPL reprocessed Cassini radio/Doppler and gravity data, concluding Titan does not host a continuous subsurface ocean.
- The team reports strong internal energy dissipation and a roughly 15‑hour lag between Saturn’s peak gravitational tug and Titan’s maximum bulge, favoring a slushy, high‑pressure ice ‘hydrosphere.’
- Models describe hundreds of kilometers of high‑pressure ice and slush containing isolated meltwater pockets that may locally reach about 20°C under Titan’s immense pressures.
- Researchers say such pocketed, warmer niches could concentrate nutrients and reshape astrobiology strategies compared with prior searches focused on a global ocean.
- Some scientists, including Luciano Iess, contend the available evidence does not yet rule out an ocean, with NASA’s Dragonfly mission and future seismic measurements expected to help resolve Titan’s interior structure.