Cassini Discovers First River On Another World 230
AbsoluteXyro writes "NASA's Cassini orbiter, which has been dutifully exploring the Saturn system since 2004, has captured images of the first river ever observed on another world — and it's a biggun. 200 miles of flowing hydrocarbons meandering down a valley in the north polar region of Saturn's moon Titan, emptying into the awesomely named Kraken Mare — itself a body of liquid roughly the size of the Mediterranean Sea back on Earth. But don't think of going for an extraterrestrial skinny dip quite yet, temperatures on Titan average a brutally cold 290 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit)."
Re:Oil may not be a fossil fuel then? (Score:5, Interesting)
They're called fossil fuels because that's how they were formed on Earth.
Correction: They're called fossil fuels because that's how we think they were formed on Earth. There is not much evidence for abiogenic hydrocarbons [wikipedia.org], but their isn't enough evidence to rule them out either. Coal clearly came from fossils, but for oil and gas it is still an open question.
Re:No running. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:No running. (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh, it's perfectly safe from fire. See, a hydrocarbon world like that is a chemical Bizarro World. It's the oxidizers that you have to keep under control.
Indeed.
I've occasionally wondered whether anyone at NASA has ever designed a UAV with oxygen or fluorine tanks instead of fuel tanks, for use on worlds with hydrogen/hydrocarbon atmospheres.
Re:Fahrenheit? (Score:2, Interesting)
Dividing inches into halves and then into halves again is easy to measure visually. I personally don't like using mm all that often for measuring things just because the lines are too close together. I realize that rulers with inches shows a line every 1/16th of an inch, but the lines are usually different lengths. I don't know why that's not done for even numbers of mm on the metric side. It's a much easier spatial math to me.