In Xanadu

Xanadu on Saturn’s moon, Titan, that is, where there seems to be evidence of erosion by liquid. The liquid is ethane or methane, which falls as rain and might, from these pictures, cause flash flooding. The rocks are water ice, at about -180°C.

The left-hand image, obtained by the European Space Agency’s Huygens probe, shows rounded rocks from the surface of Saturn’s moon Titan. Huygens rode with NASA’s Cassini spacecraft to the Saturn system. The right-hand image, taken by amateur photographer Sandra M. Matheson, shows river rocks on Earth. (Credit: NASA/JPL/ESA/University of Arizona and S.M. Matheson)

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