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The surface of Titan
This is the best summary I've seen of early science results from the Huygens Titan probe.
There's evidence of rainfall, not in some distant historic epoch but ongoing; but how frequent this is is still unknown. The liquid with a water-like role on Titan is methane; other light hydrocarbons are present, but the role of rocks and dirt is played by water. They think that the dark branching channels are stained by photochemical smog in the atmosphere, which condenses out as a dark coating of complex organics on the ice hills and then gets washed into the channels by the methane rain. It's still unclear whether there is open liquid anywhere, but it sounds to me as if the typical "sea" area on Titan may actually be a sort of methane-saturated mudflat with a fragile crust of more solid ice at the top. The probe boiled a significant amount of methane out of the ground just by dumping waste heat and the output of a 20-watt light bulb into the soil.
One of the most mysterious results is that Titan seems to be absolutely devoid of inert gases like argon, krypton and xenon, except for an isotope of argon produced by radioactive decay.
Scientists are, of course, already talking about what they'd like the next Titan mission to be: a blimp or a rover. But I'm afraid they'll have a lot of time to think about it—it's difficult and expensive to get anything to Saturn, even by the standards of planetary-science missions.
There's evidence of rainfall, not in some distant historic epoch but ongoing; but how frequent this is is still unknown. The liquid with a water-like role on Titan is methane; other light hydrocarbons are present, but the role of rocks and dirt is played by water. They think that the dark branching channels are stained by photochemical smog in the atmosphere, which condenses out as a dark coating of complex organics on the ice hills and then gets washed into the channels by the methane rain. It's still unclear whether there is open liquid anywhere, but it sounds to me as if the typical "sea" area on Titan may actually be a sort of methane-saturated mudflat with a fragile crust of more solid ice at the top. The probe boiled a significant amount of methane out of the ground just by dumping waste heat and the output of a 20-watt light bulb into the soil.
One of the most mysterious results is that Titan seems to be absolutely devoid of inert gases like argon, krypton and xenon, except for an isotope of argon produced by radioactive decay.
Scientists are, of course, already talking about what they'd like the next Titan mission to be: a blimp or a rover. But I'm afraid they'll have a lot of time to think about it—it's difficult and expensive to get anything to Saturn, even by the standards of planetary-science missions.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2005-01-23 10:26 am (UTC)(link)The Rain in the Plains is Mainly Methane
- Levi
no subject
Like most people in the space business, he inserted, somewhat haphazardly, a Cassini talk into the middle of what was a fairly broad cosmology lecture, including an exciting picture of some bearded guy applying the metal foil to Huygens. Dr. Tyson was not happy with the picture, and notes that if Huygens turns out to have found beard hair on Titan, you should be skeptical of the results.
He then took one of the aerial pictures of the "shoreline" on Titan, and placed it next to a similar picture of the Pacific coast of California, and then said "What we are about to do is engage in irresponsible speculation. IRRESPONSIBLE SPECULATION." And went on to compare the similarites of the features (the California picture was a really good match to start with). It was a great talk, quite funny, and his responses to questions (including a doozy about alien intelligence and human consciousness) were very well considered.
Plus, he signed the Origins book (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393059928) with a fountain pen, and for a young man who bought his first book, Merlin's Tour of the Universe (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0385488351), he signed "MERLIN" in an exquisite gothic script-- it took about 3 minutes to sign the name and draw all the little serifs and odd little marks which only K can name. Cool.