Titan Balloon Mission Being Drafted 82
eldavojohn writes "After Huygens & Cassini corrected our assumptions about Titan (a moon of Saturn), scientists are now debating about their next mission, and one of the choices is the Titan and Saturn System Mission. What makes Titan a good choice? 'Although the atmosphere of Titan is filled with a smoggy orange hydrocarbon haze, it is primarily composed of nitrogen — just like Earth's. In fact, Astrobiologists think Titan's atmosphere may be quite similar to how the Earth's was billions of years ago, before life on our planet generated oxygen.' We also discussed its liquid hydrocarbons earlier this year."
There might be THREE kinds of life! (Score:5, Interesting)
In biologist Peter Ward's book "LIFE AS WE DO NOT KNOW IT" he holds out the possibility that there might be THREE radically different kinds of life on Titan.
One might be related to, or if we're not careful with contamination, might be the same as our DNA based "CHON" (Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen) life. They would presumably live on the surface feeding on the hydrocarbons drifting down from the sky; similar to our methanogens or other chemo-trophic bacteria on earth.
Another kind of life might be something a "little" different (but still really unlike anything seen on earth, life that uses AMMONIUM as its working fluid as opposed to our life which uses water. (It would presumably live in the ammonium ocean speculated to beneath the ice) that forms Titan's surface. It's only a "little" different because it would still be basically be CHON life but who knows what its metabolism would run on?
Finally he even mentions the possibility of a SILICON based life (as opposed to our carbon based life). No, unlike the star trek Horta from "Devil in the Dark', it needn't live deep underground. Instead it would life in some of the ethane-methane lakes at the surface (which would be capable of making the silicon soluble and would substitue in for carbon I guess). So all of life's components; fats, sugars, proteins, RNA and DNA would use silicon as a major structural component. Now that's different!
For these admittedly extremely speculative reasons he suggests Titan should be just as high on our priority list of places to visit as Mars. Instead of sending a geologist-paleontologist (as he would to mars) he recommends sending a biochemist to Titan. Anyway if they found even ONE of the three kinds of life there, it would (even if they were just micro-organisms) be an incredible discovery. Of course because of Titan's distance it'll be a long while before we can put a human there, maybe we'll have to wait for A.I.
What about the Asteroid Belt? (Score:5, Interesting)
Any chance we could delay the Titan mission and instead deploy an infrared telescope to study the asteroid belt? This would not only provide us with valuable scientific knowledge, but would also give us a chance to detect earth-bound asteroids with enough time to perhaps do something about them. My understanding is that Congress has specifically asked NASA to prioritize such a mission, but the directive has mostly been ignored.
This is too bad, since there's a non-trivial chance of a serious impact in the next couple of centuries. Nothing we learn about TItan will do us much good if we're dead.
Re:What about the Asteroid Belt? (Score:4, Interesting)
Any chance we could delay the Titan mission and instead deploy an infrared telescope to study the asteroid belt? This would not only provide us with valuable scientific knowledge, but would also give us a chance to detect earth-bound asteroids with enough time to perhaps do something about them. My understanding is that Congress has specifically asked NASA to prioritize such a mission, but the directive has mostly been ignored.
You are asking for several things. The asteroids that may cause problems for the Earth do not reside in the asteroid belt though they may pass through it. Further, a single telescope isn't enough, if you're scanning for dangerous asteroids with an eye to provide advanced warning.
Second, a "serious impact" is not extinction level serious. It might mean a small chance of an end of a city, but those people would have died of something anyway.
Finally, there's plenty of indication that in ten or twenty years, we'll be far better prepared to scan for threatening asteroids. I don't think it's sound policy to throw vast sums at such a modest threat, when a little bit of time will drive those costs down.
Re:Democratic (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmmm... knew this Jewish girl with long, dark, curly hair, white skin and large... tracks of land. Tasted more like honey than pork, when you got down to it. A little on the short side though. Is nice when women are tall and curved in all the right places.
Re:Titan vs. Europa (Score:3, Interesting)
The major problem with the Galilean moons, however, is that they liquid is 1 km or more below the surface. That means that anything you see on the surface is an indirect measure of the liquid underneath. They're interesting bodies, but they are harder to study in many respects.