Titan back in the spotlight
saturn really has some amazing moons. who can forget the release of esa's huygens images of the surface of titan back in 2005? the image above was made by an amateur image processor who had access to the huygens data, and it makes titan look strangely familiar. today, esa announced that the amount of liquid hydrocarbons on titan's surface surpass the total amount on earth by a factor of hundreds. there, hydrocarbons rain from the sky and collect in lakes and pools.
are we off to titan now, bush?
seriously, this is really cool. especially from the perspective of astrobiology and our interest in how complex chemistry forms in environments very different from that on earth.
Labels: astrobiology, esa, huygens, saturn, titan
posted by Zosia A. C. Krusberg at
1:19 PM
3 Comments:
Titan really is hugely important. Probably the second most important thing in the solar system. (Well, maybe further down than that... the moon, the Earth, the Sun... those are important too.)
The atmospheric structure is almost exactly the same as the Earth's with a distinct troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, and thermosphere, although with a significantly different scale height. Then there are huge dune fields with dunes that don't run in the right directions and all sorts of cool stuff.
i guess we can develop different list of importance for different things. we wouldn't survive without the sun, but in terms of exploring the formation of life, the sun isn't so high on the list.
Well, it would be difficult to have life without having the sun. :)
I think the real problem with science is that everything is inter-related. Wouldn't it be so much easier if things were actually independent. We could look at life on the Earth without having to worry about the fact that the solar insolation changes pretty significantly as a function of time and the moon dramatically effects the Earth's rotation and tides might actually be responsible for concentrating amino acids in tidepools to give rise to life.
Really! Just one thing at a time please.
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