Cassini Peers Into Titan's Haze

An anonymous reader writes "The BBC reports that the Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn has peered closer at the moon Titan to reveal two thin, outer layers of haze high in its atmosphere."

Comments

Re:Titan's atmosphere

[ajax0187]

Any sort of life that would develop on Titan would still be something we'd probably have trouble recognizing as life. IIRC, the role of water is replaced by methane, and so any sort of life that develops on the moon will probably be using that like we use water. Either that, or they'll be something like the tube worms that live next to the methane vents on the sea bottom. But even then, those worms have evolved for extreme pressure and extremely high temperature, the exact opposite of the atmosphere on Titan.

If there is life, it'll be...weird.

Re:Methane?

[Jeff Duntemann]

Methane does not stink; it's completely odorless. Natural gas is in fact methane, but what makes natural gas (as burned in your stove) smelly is a substance named ethyl mercaptan, which is added specifically so that when gas gets out of the stove or the pipes, you can tell before the whole place goes up.

--73--

--JD--