Archival Cassini Data May Erase Titan's Subterranean Ocean

NASA has announced that its own prior theory that Titan might have a subterranean ocean was greatly exaggerated—or at least a bit hasty.

We've covered the ongoing attempts to peer onto (and into) Saturn's largest moon in the past, and tracked NASA's theorizing about underground water oceans. Now, the agency's own research is calling that idea into question, positing instead a sort of slushy of water and ice that has very different properties.

In reality, the research never really stopped. The initial spark of interest came from the Cassini probe, which reported that the moon Titan was undergoing enormous tidal flexing as it orbited; that is, it was changing shape far more than predicted, as its orbit brought it closer or further from Saturn.

This was originally interpreted as a reason to believe that Titan could have a liquid interior, but the explanation never fully ...