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New Delhi, Delhi, India
Saturn's largest moon -- known to Earth by the name of Titan -- is moving away from its planet a hundred times faster than previously established, a new study claims.
The study was published on Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy.
Titan is unique in our solar system. It's the only known moon with a considerable atmosphere and the only planetary body in addition to Earth with liquid rivers and lakes on its surface.
Saturn's other moons -- among the 150 known moons in our solar system -- are also slowly distancing themselves from the planets they orbit, including our own moon.
Saturn has 82 moons. Titan, which is larger than the planet Mercury, orbits the planet at a distance of 759,000 miles away. And if it's been moving away from the planet at a rapid rate each year, Saturn's entire planetary system has also expanded.
Earth's moon moves about 1.5 inches away each year.
According to NASA, this is caused by the moon's gravity tugging on the planet, which creates a temporary bulge in the planet. That energy pushes the moon further away.
NASA says Titan's migration rate equals about 4 inches per year.
Lainey worked on the study as a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
A theoretical astrophysicist and assistant professor at the California Institute of Technology has a theory that both inner and outer moons of planets migrate away at similar rates. Both types of moons get stuck in orbits related to the planet's wobble, which pushes them away.
This theory changed the long-prevailing view that outer moons migrated more slowly than inner moons. This idea was based on the fact that the outer moons are more distant from the gravity of their planet.
In 2026, NASA will send the Dragonfly mission to further investigate Titan. It will arrive at the moon by 2034. The Mars rover-size drone will be able to fly through Titan's thick atmosphere for about two and a half years.
The ultimate goal is for Dragonfly to visit an impact crater, where they believe that important ingredients for life mixed together when something hit Titan in the past, possibly tens of thousands of years ago.
(with inputs)