This sketch illustrates how the radio wave, (if the PWA team confirms that the signal is a natural phenomenon and not an artefact of the way the instrument worked) could provide a powerful new way to probe not just the atmosphere of Titan but its subsurface as well. In fact, the wave could have been reflected by a liquid-ice boundary of a subsurface ocean of water and ammonia predicted by theoretical models.

Credits: ESA/Obs. De Paris Meudon/CETP-IPSL