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Space Science

Titan's Surface Revealed 169

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-can-see-my-house-from-here dept.
MattKeeler writes "NASA's running a story on the recent findings of Cassini, the satellite orbiting Titan, one of Saturn's giant moons. New images reveal details of the moon's surface and a variety of materials that cover it."
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Titan's Surface Revealed More

Titan's Surface Revealed

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  • Sirens! (Score:5, Funny)

    by spellraiser ( 764337 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @09:18AM (#9612765) Journal

    I want to see pictures of the Sirens! Where are they??

    • Re:Sirens! (Score:1, Informative)

      by Nspace13 ( 654963 )
      they're at the bottom of the pool, they are just statues anyway. rock on fellow vonnegut reader

      • Re:Sirens! (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        someone (moderator!) doesn't read. this should have been modded funny or left alone. the sirens of titan is an extrememly famous book by kurt vonnegut, and they were really just statues. jesus people don't mod what you don't understand.

    • Not offtopic (Score:5, Informative)

      by spellraiser ( 764337 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @09:54AM (#9612996) Journal

      Ok, this is the last time I try to post a literary reference on slashdot. Don't you people read books?

      Check this [amazon.com] out. Good book. Read it.

      And stop modding stuff down just because you don't get the reference.

    • Crap! I thought I was going to beat everyone to the punch posting about Sirens, only to find someone else did it and it was the first post.

    • Well, here we have a wonderful probe sent by Earthlings to finally take an actual look at Titan, and it may soon resolve some of its mysterious features. I can't help thinking of the Kurt Vonnegut character, Salo (from "The Sirens Of Titan"), the million year old robot who was stranded on that world, whose journey through the Universe was to present to any race of beings he met a message he kept on a dogtag around his neck. The message consisted of a single dot, which meant in his language: "Greetings!"
    • Mmmmm, Elle McPherson and Kate Fischer... *drool*

  • Best...comment...EVER! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Big Nothing ( 229456 ) <tord.stromdal@gmail.com> on Monday July 05, 2004 @09:18AM (#9612768)
    "We're seeing a totally alien surface"

    No shit, Sherlock?

  • Jack Handy (Score:5, Funny)

    by deutschemonte ( 764566 ) <{lane.montgomery} {at} {gmail.com}> on Monday July 05, 2004 @09:23AM (#9612807) Homepage
    What if there was life on Titan and they shot down our probe because they thought it was attacking them with it's scanning technology.

    Then they would send a probe to our moon and scan it with their weapons technology.

    That would suck.

    • Re:Jack Handy (Score:5, Funny)

      by l810c ( 551591 ) * on Monday July 05, 2004 @09:32AM (#9612870)
      I bet the tin foil hat sales on Titan are through the roof right now.

    • Re:Jack Handy (Score:5, Funny)

      by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @09:39AM (#9612901)
      In other news the Pentagon confirmed that German intelligence had uncovered evidence of WMD on Titan. The weapons are believed to have been developed by the Titians, a cult cloaked in mystery and understood to have clashed previously with ancient Greek culture. A spokesman said this probably explained the disapperance of Atlantis and that Titan had been moved from position 825 to position 7 on the Places To Be Invaded list. When questioned President Bush had only two words on the matter, "Jelly Babies".
      • You're just claiming WMD to invade and harvest all those "hydrocarbons", on Earth represented mostly as "natural gas", oil and coal. Crusader!
      • Of course there are WMD there. They found evidence of hydrocarbons there. Better mount an invasion to secure the oil... err- liberate the Titans.
      • In other news, Lockheed Martin decided to merge with the moon Titan, instead of Titan Corporation of San Diego. "Titan the moon has been around since the formation of the planets, 10 billion years ago," Lockheed said in a press release. "Titan Corporation has cash-flow problems, and is implicated in the Iraqi prison scandal. Not to mention all that hydrocarbons out there make it possible for us to form a partnership with ExxonMobil in exploiting Titanian oil."
    • If you look carefully to the photo on the article, you'll notice that what it's believed to be a crater resambles the main weapon of the Death Star. If it is active, i'll be happy they *only* shoot down the probe and not the Earth.

  • Just think.. (Score:1, Funny)

    by MikeDX ( 560598 )
    If we find out that Titan has a twin, and they collide.. we could indeed have a real-life "Clash of the Titans!"

  • Woah (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mfh ( 56 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @09:25AM (#9612820) Homepage Journal
    For a millisecond, I thought I was looking at a picture of an inhabitable world. That's one misleading photo, imho... Not to mention, heavily pixilated.

    • Re:Woah (Score:3, Informative)

      by torpor ( 458 )

      Titan isn't habitable, you say?

      I thought Titan was one of the reasons hydrothermal vents were so interesting?

      • Re:Woah (Score:5, Informative)

        by pyr0 ( 120990 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @10:17AM (#9613144)
        I believe you are actually thinking of Europa, a moon of Jupiter. It is thought there is an ocean of liquid water beneath the icy crust. Thus, if there are any hydrothermal vents at the bottom of this ocean, there may be life.

        The interest in Titan, as the article points out, is that it is thought to contain a frozen snapshot of pre-life forming compounds similar to what was around in Earth's atmosphere ~4 billion years ago.

    • Yes, it seems that someone doesn't understand that scaling an image up doesn't magically generate more information, regardless of how good your interpolation algorithm is.

    • Re:Woah (Score:3, Interesting)

      by pyr0 ( 120990 )
      How is the photo misleading? Also, (moderators) how is this interesting? False-color spectrographic images are pretty standard for this sort of thing. The article clearly states this fact.
      • How is the photo misleading?
        Because it looks at first glance like Earth does with the naked eye. That's why. Until you start reading and realize what you're looking at, that is. Scientists are supposed to know better than to use colors that are misleading. They should have used pinks, blues and blacks or something else.
    • For a millisecond, I thought I was looking at a picture of an inhabitable world. That's one misleading photo, imho... Not to mention, heavily pixilated.

      Planets are not the only celestial bodies that can be inhabitable. After all, a moon is simply a "planet" that orbits another planet. Having read the article, they spoke about clouds of gas on Titan, suggesting to me that there is some sort of atmosphere. The article did not mention however what the size and gravity is for that moon, does anyone here know

      • Re:Who's to say it isn't inhabitable? (Score:5, Informative)

        by GregChant ( 305127 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @10:46AM (#9613340)
        Those clouds of gas, as you call them, are believed to be methane, which is supposedly the primary ingredient of its atmosphere. If you could light a match on Titan, the whole moon would be engulfed in fire faster than you could say "who farted?"

        Titan is believed to be one of the most inhospitable worlds in the solar system: I wouldn't go planning your vacation just yet.

        But, to answer your question, from the ESA:
        Diameter (atmosphere): 5550 km
        Diameter (surface): 5150 km
        Mass: 1/45 that of Earth
        Average density: 1.881 times liquid water
        Surface temperature: 94K (-180 degrees C)
        Atmospheric pressure at surface: 1500 mbar (1.5 times Earth's)
        Atmospheric composition: Nitrogen, methane, traces of ammonia, argon, ethane

        • Re:Who's to say it isn't inhabitable? (Score:5, Informative)

          by aiabx ( 36440 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @11:08AM (#9613525)
          I wouldn't worry too much about Titan bursting into flames. While there is lots of methane, there isn't very much in the way of oxygen, which you need to burn the methane. If you think about it, if the atmsophere were that explosive, a meteor would have set it off billions of years ago.
          -aiabx
        • For any of that methane to burn, it would need oxygen, notably absent from an atmosphere similar to Earth's (except for the "substituted" carbon content).

    • Re:Woah (Score:1)

      by p3d0 ( 42270 )
      Wow, you must be pretty dumb. Nice user ID though.
      • Wow, you must be pretty dumb. Nice user ID though. How is he dumb? Oh I'm sorry, that must have been a troll.
    • So, you want a visible wavelength picture of the surface of a moon whose atmosphere totally obscures the surface? You'd be looking at the top layer of some orangy-brown clouds.

      Somehow I think that would be less interesting.

  • Picture quality (Score:1, Redundant)

    by fbonnet ( 756003 )
    Their camcorder sucks.
    • You think NASA could have afforded a better one. How many hundreds of millions of dollars did this mission cost? I'm sure they could have at least sprung for a mid-range Sony MiniDV with 1.2 Megapixel stills. SIG: There is no sig.

      • Not the usual channels (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        The full text of this article from The Economist [economist.com] follows. The original content is subscriber-only; it is reproduced here in the hope and expectation that you will find it useful.

        ----

        Coding theory

        Not the usual channels

        Jul 1st 2004
        From The Economist print edition

        [Image] [economist.com]

        How to transmit information reliably

        ON JULY 1st, a spacecraft called Cassini went into orbit around Saturn--the first probe to visit the planet since 1981. While the rockets that got it there are surely impressive, j

        • Dear Economist Troll,

          What you're doing is wrong, but I think I love you. A few people on Slashdot made references to Cassini using something called 'convolution coding' in a previous article's comments, and I didn't know anything about what they were talking about - but now I know.

          I think I'm going to have to get a subscription to the Economist [economist.com] now...

  • Source of life (Score:4, Interesting)

    by underpar ( 792569 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @09:31AM (#9612856) Homepage
    The idea of Titan holding the key to our understanding of pre-life earth has always been interesting, but a little too optimistic.

    I mean, isn't Europa the one that's supposed to develop life?

  • I love articles like this... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by NeoGeo64 ( 672698 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @09:32AM (#9612862) Homepage Journal
    Because I like reading about space exploration, and the fact that NASA's webserver can't be slashdotted.

  • Cassini is Orbiting SATURN (Score:4, Insightful)

    by grondak ( 80002 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @09:32AM (#9612868) Homepage
    Come on.

    • Re:Cassini is Orbiting SATURN (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 05, 2004 @09:51AM (#9612979)
      "NASA's running a story on the recent findings of Cassini, the satellite orbiting Titan, one of Saturn's giant moons. New images reveal details of the moon's surface and a variety of materials that cover it."

      Right, the parent said it. Cassini is orbiting Saturn, and does flybys of Titan. Cassini is on a complicated looping orbit so it can slingshot around the Saturn minisystem and visit the interesting moons.

      Details can be found at:
      http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/operations/saturn- tour. cfm
    • Closer to accurate than the Los Angeles Times front page blurb on the Cassini orbit insertion, which heralded its entrance into the orbit of Jupiter.

      They had a one-in-nine chance of getting the planet right, I guess.

  • False-color picture (Score:2, Informative)

    by wazlaf ( 681158 )
    Too bad this is only a false-color image and has no relation to the colors visible to the human eye. While this is probably nice too look at for scientists in order to do some research, it leaves the rest of us clueless about "What Titan really looks like"..

  • Titans Cloud. (Score:1, Interesting)

    by torpor ( 458 )

    I was wondering, that bit about the cloud, do they mean that the ring of sky that Titan has traced around Saturn has thus far gotten 'dense' enough that its a single 'cloud', encompassing both Saturn and the rings?

    Kind of a 'ring of Titan' that has captured the planet and its lesser minions?

    If so, thats pretty interesting. Might be useful to know how that works, if we're going to get any terraforming done in the next 100 years.

    • Re:Titans Cloud. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Chris Burke ( 6130 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @10:40AM (#9613284) Homepage
      No, they're saying that the cloud of particles following Titan around in its orbit is larger that Saturn and rings. Titan orbits Saturn at about 1.2 million km, and Saturn's rings (and thus presumably the cloud) are about 150 thousand km in radius. So the could isn't surrounding Saturn, it's surrounding Titan and following Titan in its orbit.

      Still pretty neat, there's a giant gas cloud as big as the planet orbiting it.
  • At least it looks like Marvin would like Titan more than expected.
  • Looks like the after [tw-angel.net] part of this shot of California.

  • Orbiting Titan (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Incorrect. Cassini just started orbiting SATURN. Cassini has a probe that NASA plans on launching late this fall to puncture Titan's clouds and land on the surface.

    • Landing on Titan (Score:4, Informative)

      by JC_England ( 680253 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @11:14AM (#9613569)
      The Huygens probe is:

      Made by ESA (The European Space Agency);
      Due for release on Christmas day IIRC;
      Will enter Titan's atmosphere about 21 days later;
      Will live for less than 4 hours while (hopefully) parachuting down to the surface;
      Should give us "ground truth" to compare with all the Cassini remote sensing.

  • Impact crater? (Score:3, Funny)

    by bjparker ( 95974 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @09:56AM (#9613008)
    Note the circular feature, a possible impact crater, in the northern hemisphere.

    That's no impact crater, they've found a Death Star!

  • Oh shit... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Epistax ( 544591 ) <epistax@gmaiAAAl.com minus threevowels> on Monday July 05, 2004 @10:03AM (#9613060) Journal
    I hope they don't see my weed garden.

  • Legos? (Score:5, Funny)

    by 955301 ( 209856 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @10:07AM (#9613080) Journal
    ... a variety of materials that cover it.

    So, are there any Legos? Cause, I mean, you can build freakin' anything out of Legos. Life can't be too far behind.
  • From the comments in the story, it is either a negative or a not likely. Otherwise they would have mentioned something that could turn out to be liquid methane.
  • ... no monolith?

  • What is the point... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...of these missions? How does this change my life? How does this improve the quality of life for people on Earth? So there is a methane cloud on Titan. SO WHAT? I'm not trying to be a bastard, or rain on anyone's parade, I really don't understand. I find it really interesting and fascinating, but I always somehow feel that this is really getting us nowhere. I want to explore as much as the next guy, but what tangible benefits are there?
    • The benefits are not always obvious, and sometimes the only benefit is more accumulated knowledge. But accumulating knowledge through exploration has, in the past, led to discovering new continents, new natural resources, new technologies that DO dramatically alter everyone's lifestyles (for good or ill) and even new religions. (Not much hope for a pantheon of weather gods once you understand the basics of meterology. Science can and does alter the way people think about the universe.)

      For an excellent disc
    • Is as of now, unknown. Many great discoveries in science and technology came about because of investigations elsehwhere. The point is, we don't know what we will discover or how it will influence other investigations or discoveries. We do know that almost all scientific investigations lead to discoveries in other areas. That's what makes it worthwhile.

  • Wanna see something on mars
    http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/e01_e06/full _jpg_ctx_map/E05/E0502144.jpg
    geologists: please debunk
    • Your link didn't work for me, but this one [usgs.gov] does. So what's the big deal? The Lips of Mars? (-:

      How do I find a higher res MOC image of 28.38lat x 331.81long or thereabouts?

  • solaris (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @11:23AM (#9613636) Homepage Journal
    Vast, complex hydrocarbon rafts in a methane sea... could we have an embryonic Solaris [imdb.com] in our system? Or not so embryonic? These dreams... where do they come from...
  • Any biologists out there care to speculate on exotic forms of life that can grow at 94 degree K? Probably no chance to use water as a catalyst ...

    Any astrogeologists (if that's not an oxymoron) know what the chances are of localized hotspots on titan (e.g. is the core hot?)

    • Re:Chances for life? (Score:3, Informative)

      by barakn ( 641218 )
      Regarding hotspots, see my post [slashdot.org] to original (not this dupe) story . All active living organisms on Earth contains liquid water within the interior of their cells. At 94 K liquid water is impossible, and it's hard to imagine life occuring in a solid phase. This leaves something truly exotic: cells filled with an organic solvent such as ethane, which is not nearly as good a solvent or catalyst as water. Such an organism seems unlikely.
    • Molds. Apparently, there was mold growing on the outside of Mir.

      Also, virus and simple bacteria can survive those temperatures, I believe. At the very least, they can survive cryo-preservation.

      Actually, there is an interesting point which is whether or not it's necessary for life to grow at the temperature Titan is currently at. Perhaps Titan has "Warm Ages" just like Earth has "Ice Ages". Hell, maybe every 10,000 years or so, the planet heats up 40 or 50 degrees... who knows? If so, maybe bacteri
      • Based on the little biochemistry I know, I'd say that water is a rather unique chemical, and it's due to its special qualities (e.g. hydrogen bonds, interaction with other polar molecules) that life as we know it is possible. Sure, there may be biology based on other compounds, but the more we know about our biochemistry the less likely it seems that an equally "powerful" system could arise. There are organisms that life at higher and lower temperatures, but I think they generally use tricks (like anti-fr
  • That's no impact crater. It's the primary weapon.
    • OH, there is one, but the chozo sealed it to prevent the phazon from escaping, and when the seal broke, the bounty hunter, Samus Aran destroyed the source of the phazon.

  • Three times redder than they human eye can see?!?! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sbaker ( 47485 ) * on Monday July 05, 2004 @12:29PM (#9614229) Homepage
    "Near-infrared colors, some three times redder than the human eye can see"

    What the fsck does that mean?

    Some of the wavelengths are three times as long as 'Red'?

    Visible 'red' light is around .65 to maybe .75 micrometers. So are they are saying 2.1um or so?

    I do wish these articles would just say what they mean and not try to make it seem more 'amazing' with fuzzy statements like that. It's like "WOW! THREE TIMES REDDER!" - when in fact, near IR is nothing special - most cheap camcorders can take pretty good pictures in that frequency range.

    Ack!
    • Visible 'red' light is around .65 to maybe .75 micrometers. So are they are saying 2.1um or so?

      I do wish these articles would just say what they mean and not try to make it seem more 'amazing' with fuzzy statements like that. It's like "WOW! THREE TIMES REDDER!" - when in fact, near IR is nothing special - most cheap camcorders can take pretty good pictures in that frequency range.

      Silicon photodetectors, like the silicon CCD chips in camcorders, have a cutoff at about 1.1 micron. They won't see 2.1 micro
  • Ok, am I the only one that noticed that Mr. CmdTaco stated above that Cassini is orbiting Titan?

    Of course the satellite is in fact orbiting Saturn.

    It's necessary that I point out this fact because so many Americans don't even understand that the Moon orbits the earth.

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