"Proof of methane lakes on Titan"
Ahnimus
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The Cassini probe has spotted what scientists say is unequivocal evidence of lakes of liquid methane on Titan, Saturn's largest moon.
Radar images reveal dark, smooth patches that range in size from three to 70km across (two to 44 miles).
The team says the features, which were spied in the moon's far north, look like crater or caldera lakes on Earth.
The researchers tell the journal Nature that everything about the patches points to them being pools of liquid.
"They look very similar to lakes on Earth," explained Dr Ellen Stofan, a Cassini radar team member from Proxemy Research in Washington DC, US.
"They have channels feeding into them just like you have rivers feeding into lakes on the Earth. Their shapes, their shore-lines, all of those geologic aspects are actually very familiar."
Northern strip
The atmospheric chemistry on Titan is dominated by nitrogen and carbon-based compounds.
And with temperatures on the Saturnian satellite rarely venturing above -179C (-290F), it has long been hypothesised that abundant volumes of methane should pool on the surface into lakes, and even large seas.
Cassini
Cassini has been investigating Saturn and its moons since 2004
But evidence for current bodies of liquid material on the surface has until now been sparse and equivocal.
Cassini must use radar to pierce the photochemical haze that obscures Titan's surface from its optical camera system.
The latest data was obtained last July, when the probe made its most northern radar pass of Titan to date.
The spacecraft imaged a narrow strip about 250km wide and over 1,000km long. It was found to contain more than 75 lakes.
Everything scientists know about the atmospheric chemistry on Titan suggests the liquid in the lakes should be predominantly methane, with some ethane also mixed in.
Some of the liquid would be expected to rain out of the sky, some could have welled up from below the surface.
Methane cycle
"The methane-ethane would become transparent, the way water is on Earth; it would be behaving like water, the lakes could have small waves on the surfaces," speculated Dr Stofan.
"So if it was possible for you to stand on Titan and look at the lakes, you wouldn't really know it's this weird chemistry."
Scientists have long predicted the existence of lakes
More details
On Earth, the cycling of water between the atmosphere, the land and oceans is known as the hydrological cycle. Titan would appear to be the only other place in the Solar System to have a similar, active fluid cycle. Scientists have already dubbed it the "methane-ologic cycle".
Last month, it was announced that the radar instrument on Cassini had found an enormous mountain range on Titan.
The range lies south of the equator and is about 150km long (93 miles), 30km (19 miles) wide and about 1.5km (nearly a mile) high.
Scientists told the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting that the range was probably as hard as rock, but made of icy materials.
The mountains appeared in the radar images to be coated with layers of material that researchers thought could be methane "snow".
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of the US space agency (Nasa), the European Space Agency (Esa) and the Italian Space Agency (Asi).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6230381.stm
Radar images reveal dark, smooth patches that range in size from three to 70km across (two to 44 miles).
The team says the features, which were spied in the moon's far north, look like crater or caldera lakes on Earth.
The researchers tell the journal Nature that everything about the patches points to them being pools of liquid.
"They look very similar to lakes on Earth," explained Dr Ellen Stofan, a Cassini radar team member from Proxemy Research in Washington DC, US.
"They have channels feeding into them just like you have rivers feeding into lakes on the Earth. Their shapes, their shore-lines, all of those geologic aspects are actually very familiar."
Northern strip
The atmospheric chemistry on Titan is dominated by nitrogen and carbon-based compounds.
And with temperatures on the Saturnian satellite rarely venturing above -179C (-290F), it has long been hypothesised that abundant volumes of methane should pool on the surface into lakes, and even large seas.
Cassini
Cassini has been investigating Saturn and its moons since 2004
But evidence for current bodies of liquid material on the surface has until now been sparse and equivocal.
Cassini must use radar to pierce the photochemical haze that obscures Titan's surface from its optical camera system.
The latest data was obtained last July, when the probe made its most northern radar pass of Titan to date.
The spacecraft imaged a narrow strip about 250km wide and over 1,000km long. It was found to contain more than 75 lakes.
Everything scientists know about the atmospheric chemistry on Titan suggests the liquid in the lakes should be predominantly methane, with some ethane also mixed in.
Some of the liquid would be expected to rain out of the sky, some could have welled up from below the surface.
Methane cycle
"The methane-ethane would become transparent, the way water is on Earth; it would be behaving like water, the lakes could have small waves on the surfaces," speculated Dr Stofan.
"So if it was possible for you to stand on Titan and look at the lakes, you wouldn't really know it's this weird chemistry."
Scientists have long predicted the existence of lakes
More details
On Earth, the cycling of water between the atmosphere, the land and oceans is known as the hydrological cycle. Titan would appear to be the only other place in the Solar System to have a similar, active fluid cycle. Scientists have already dubbed it the "methane-ologic cycle".
Last month, it was announced that the radar instrument on Cassini had found an enormous mountain range on Titan.
The range lies south of the equator and is about 150km long (93 miles), 30km (19 miles) wide and about 1.5km (nearly a mile) high.
Scientists told the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting that the range was probably as hard as rock, but made of icy materials.
The mountains appeared in the radar images to be coated with layers of material that researchers thought could be methane "snow".
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of the US space agency (Nasa), the European Space Agency (Esa) and the Italian Space Agency (Asi).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6230381.stm
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
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http://esamultimedia.esa.int/images/huygens_alien_winds_descent.mp3
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygens/SEMKVQOFGLE_1.html
Maybe, scientists believe that life could form on Titan.
But it's a great find, those lakes of methane.
Doesn't this basically mean that there can be carbon-based life forms already present (givent the nitrogen-carbon athmosphere)
this also implicates human life might one day be possible there. or maybe it can be used as kind of a plantation !
- Antwerp '06, Nijmegen '07, Werchter '07
I wouldn't laugh your arse off if I were you! :cool: You may get abducted by fart loving aliens from Titan! :eek:
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMZ0B57ESD_index_0.html
That's a great video. I wonder what that shadow was passing north on the west-facing shot. I couldn't find an explanation in the article.
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A drainage channel maybe. DId you listen to the narration?
Too cold + no oxygen = not likely in either case
Would be neat though
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Prepare for tending to your garden, America.
An anaerobic organism or anaerobe is any organism that does not require oxygen for growth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobe
Unbound oxygen (also called molecular oxygen, or dioxygen, O2, a diatomic molecule) first appeared in significant quantities on Earth during the Paleoproterozoic era (between 2.5 billion years ago and 1.6 billion years ago) as a product of the metabolic action of early anaerobes (archaea and bacteria).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen#Occurrence
Love that movie - Labyrinth.
Even if this were to be occuring, it would be too cold to support life as we know it. Bacteria possibly, like the bacteria that live inside solid rock, but we'd never be able to settle Titan.
We probably won't be able to because the O2 created by the Anaerobes would be toxic to us. We are looking at 2 billion years before it's anything like earth. But evidence of life on Titan, means life can exist elsewhere in the uinverse, which means their is probably other intelligent life somewhere.
If we could evolve and adapt to our surroundings and atmoshphere, why wouldn't other organisms be unable to do exactly the same.
Life is possible anywhere, but it needs to be adapted to its environment (my pers. oppinion)
- Antwerp '06, Nijmegen '07, Werchter '07
the possibility of life on other planets, or other glaxies, really has to shake the foundation of our perception of life as we know it. It completely blows holes in religion, so 90% of the world would have to rethink their stance on pretty much everything.
The narrated version didn't work for me. It is definitely a shadow, though, not a channel. From something overhead, orb-shaped. Another moon?
all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.
Hate to be the one to bust a smelly stereotype but methane is completely odourless. It is hydrogen sulfide that causes the smell from our gastric discharges.
old music: http://www.myspace.com/slowloader
And as for the religion bit... let them try and explain that one
I bet they will never succeed in coming up with a reasonnable explanation
- Antwerp '06, Nijmegen '07, Werchter '07
- Antwerp '06, Nijmegen '07, Werchter '07
god's a gardener, man...earth is just one section of that garden...
from my window to yours
- Antwerp '06, Nijmegen '07, Werchter '07
Why on earth (pun intended) would intelligent life on other planets 'blow holes in religion'? That's ridiculous. Anyway yeah, on with the thread...
- the great Sir Leo Harrison
man was his so called friggin' masterpiece...
Heaven's counterpart hell is believed to be in the center of our planet Earth....(why not Jupiter if it was up to God)
then again, I am not that familiar with religion (I assumed christianity, because it's closer to me)...
- Antwerp '06, Nijmegen '07, Werchter '07