NASA's Cassini Discovers Hydrocarbon Dunes On Titan (examiner.com) 77
MarkWhittington writes: NASA made an announcement that Titan, a moon of Saturn and the largest moon in the solar system, has hydrocarbon dunes. The discovery has highlighted the entirely alien nature of Titan, which has seas, lakes and rains of liquid methane and ethane and a surface comprised on water ice. The fact that it has dunes made of frozen hydrocarbon that acts like sand, blown by the wind on Earth is yet another piece of data that has scientists interested in studying Titan further.
Some strong winds (Score:2, Insightful)
The fact that it has dunes made of frozen hydrocarbon that acts like sand, blown by the wind on Earth
Another mystery of the cosmos.
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You DON'T want to be caught in my methane WINDS!
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I wonder if Rowan Atkinson's character got its name because he farts a lot.
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We don't mind your methanes, but those sulfides are killer dude
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Titan has a surface atmospheric pressure of 1 and a half times that of Earth. If the Earth's atmosphere can move solid grains around, then it is no surprise that titan's atmosphere can.
Actually, it is more surprising that the atmosphere of Mars (1/100the earth;s surface pressure) can produce dunes.
Sirens (Score:2)
Those dunes, that's where the Sirens live.
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Muad'Dave
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Best moo-related comment so far.
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"Unilateral" means "one sided". I think you'll find the biggest problem in Syria is that there are waaaay more sides than that.
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Free Titan? I would call it "Attack on Titan".
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That's one more reason not to go there!
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Frequent Rumble?
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Don't forget the pipeline that has to be built. Fortunately, we won't have those pesky property rights to worry about...
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I can't wait until 2620 so people stop making that stupid joke once and for all.
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I can't wait until 2620 so people stop making that stupid joke once and for all.
Fight for your bitcoins! [coinbrawl.com]
I can't wait until people stop making jokes at all. After all, what purpose do they serve? They merely distract the weak-minded from the serious business of leveraging synergies for maximisation of disruptive innovations in the digital marketplace.
FYI: Titan is second largest in Solar System (Score:4, Informative)
> the largest moon in the solar system
Jupiter's Ganymede has a diameter of 5268 km and Titan has a diameter of 5151 km. Titan is the second largest moon in the Solar System.
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The Examiner does not concern itself with mere facts.
A quote from a nearby article:
All of which is not lost on any individual with access to the Internet, who can easily Google for facts, instead of relying on notoriously fickle computer models.
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If you count Titan's atmosphere it is the largest moon in the solar system.
We count Jupiter's and Saturn's atmospheres when we calculate their size, why not Titan?
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Atmospheres aren't a good thing to measure because they have no sharp limit -- they just become thinner and thinner. Jupiter's radius would be about 5000 km larger if we counted its full atmosphere. We systematically calculate size starting from the sharpest drop in density of the body, whether this falls within the atmosphere or at its base.
Re: FYI: Titan is second largest in Solar System (Score:5, Interesting)
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Which is also the reason why Pluto is still a planet, damnit!
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Fun fact : Ganymede and Titan also orbit the sun ;)
Unbelievable (Score:1)
Paid post's? Lenovo?
Has the world ended, or just here?
Tar sands in Titan? (Score:4, Funny)
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I don;'t no teh sciense so I'll make da politikal jokezz!! HAR HGAR HARAR!!
Another science article that has conversations totally lacking science on Slashdork. Imagine that.
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The oil must flow.
Lack of democracy (Score:1)
Also Cassini have detected that Titan has a strong lack of democracy.
In completely unrelated news... (Score:2)
In completely unrelated news congress has voted to increase NASA's budget today.
In other news NASA has announced joint ventures with private Oil and Gas companies. A source close to the deal had this to say about why they joined forces, "No reason, they just seemed like nice guys."
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Hydrocarbons, you say?
In other unrelated news, the NSA satellite reports evidence of WMDs on Titan.
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Hate on it all you want but if you want space exploration beyond a few probes and LEO dickering then you're going to have to accept private interests looking to make a profit somewhere.
The Star Trek fantasies you neckbeards prattle on about are just that, fantasies.
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They sure did. [wikipedia.org]
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WTF? (Score:2)
"comprised on"? DonÂt think so.
Interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
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Oxidizer (Score:5, Interesting)
On Titan, if there were any "natives", would they call oxygen "fuel" and their hydrocarbons "Hydrocarbonizers"?
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Of course they would not, as they obviously wouldn't speak english.
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They speak Titanese, which when written looks like Perl 6
They have hydrocarbons? (Score:5, Funny)
Hydrocarbons = Progress! (Score:2)
This means I'll be able to keep driving my '72 Coupe DeVille.
http://vpstestbringatrailercom... [presscdn.com]
That implies... (Score:2)
Titan, a moon of Saturn and the largest moon in the solar system, has hydrocarbon dunes.
So, Titan had dinosaurs in the ancient past?
~Loyal
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More like "hydrocarbons and organic compounds are fairly common in the universe".
You can't make up a 288 billion mile alcohol cloud [phys.org] and not have people laugh at you. Find it for real, and everyone stands around going "wow, really?".
The universe has all sorts of wacky stuff in it. This probably isn't even much of a stretch.
Re:That implies... (Score:4, Insightful)
The number of posters who seem to think that fossil fuels are the only type of hydrocarbon makes me sad. Sure, some of them are making jokes, but there are more than a handful who appear to be actually serious in this belief.
Believing that dinosaurs had to exist before hydrocarbons requires the most bizarre self-contradictory theory of Creationism ever conceived.
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Yeah there is also hydroxyl groups bound to hydrocarbons.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present for your consideration and pondering, the booze nebula: http://researchnews.osu.edu/ar... [osu.edu]
Can we stop calling them fossil fuels now? (Score:3, Insightful)
That is all.
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Hydrocarbons are only called fossil fuels if they're fossil fuels, just like water is called "spring water" if it's spring water. Nobody's calling all hydrocarbons "fossil fuels".
Re:Can we stop calling them fossil fuels now? (Score:4, Insightful)
There are lots of hydrocarbons which aren't fuels at all, fossil or otherwise. (Or at least would make poorer fuels than non-hydrocarbons.)
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The dude's a spammer. I'd assume they're a poor spammer. They want you to click the link (it looks like a referrer URL) and they'll then get a portion of your work, outcome, or whatever or they'll get some sort of bonus if you join. I've not clicked the link to check. If you want to, just copy the URL, trim out the referrer part, and see the site for yourself. I've never been there so practice safe hex.
Grammar Nazi (Score:1)