Titan’s Mystique
April 22nd, 2005
(Titan’s atmosphere – click image for full image and caption)
Last January, NASA’s 7-year Cassini-Huygens Mission finally made it to Titan, one of Saturn’s many moons and the only other celestial body in our solar system with an atmosphere… which, after imagery from the orbiter returned to Earth, was determined to be made entirely out of methane!
While scientists have determined that this methane was not produced from life, they have found evidence for methane rivers and lakes. The idea of oceans of methane, which can only be liquid below -164 degrees, is truly outstounding.
Cassini is scheduled to continue to orbit around and take pictures of Titan and other moons at least another 10 times.
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April 22nd, 2005 at 8:17 pm
p.s. i’ve never enjoyed taking my Geomorphology class with our NASA professor more!
(figured i’d share the wealth ; )
April 23rd, 2005 at 9:29 am
Check out this sweet video explaining the other scientific objectives of the Cassini-Huygens Mission.
April 24th, 2005 at 2:26 pm
the Huygens probe landed on Titan on this past Christmas Day (if I remember correctly), and returned B&W imagery of hydrocarbon lakes and rivers on Titan. The photos showed marked erosion and Earth-like features, though of course due to the flow of methane, not air and water. Natural gas indeed.
April 24th, 2005 at 9:06 pm
the cool thing, too, is that because methane gas breaks down when exposed to UV radiation (i.e. it doesn’t make a very effective/protective atmosophere), scientists now think the methane might be replenished from within the moon, itself.