- #1
LumenPlacidum
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I've been looking around for information on Saturn's moon, Titan, to present to my class. One thing that wikipedia seems to say about the moon is that it has distinctly fewer impact craters than other moons of its size and position in the solar system. Supposedly, this is attributed to some combination of atmospheric shielding and the idea that it must have a relatively young surface.
It doesn't seem to me that we can possibly conclude that the surface of Titan is young. On Earth, we seem to have relatively few impact craters. In part, this is due to atmospheric shielding, but the other major factor (at least, in my mind--and this is what I'm after) is erosion. Am I missing something? Couldn't Titan, which has a dense atmosphere (and so, its wind would have significant force) and which supposedly has a fluid cycle on its surface and in its atmosphere, have a lack of impact craters simply because they've been disintegrated by powerful erosion?
I'm hoping to start a conversation on this. I don't really know if my reasoning is flawed, based on incorrect or incomplete information or what.
It doesn't seem to me that we can possibly conclude that the surface of Titan is young. On Earth, we seem to have relatively few impact craters. In part, this is due to atmospheric shielding, but the other major factor (at least, in my mind--and this is what I'm after) is erosion. Am I missing something? Couldn't Titan, which has a dense atmosphere (and so, its wind would have significant force) and which supposedly has a fluid cycle on its surface and in its atmosphere, have a lack of impact craters simply because they've been disintegrated by powerful erosion?
I'm hoping to start a conversation on this. I don't really know if my reasoning is flawed, based on incorrect or incomplete information or what.