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Titan's Smooth Surface Baffles Scientists
JazMuadDib writes "Scientists expected a few rough spots when their space drone snapped close-range images of Titan, Saturn's largest moon. Instead, the planetlike moon appears to have a bizarre, mysteriously smooth surface, and Tuesday's images have left them in a state of wonder. Read more at the Tucson Citizen." NASA's Cassini pages have a wide assortment of images and analysis. Cassini's data has already thrown scientists for loop.
It's amazing that we've had to wait more than 20 years since he wrote that to get 700 miles from Titan, and it's mind-boggling that we're actually going to drop a probe in there.
It's just a shame that he's not around to see it.
I'm not even an amateur astronomer but I've been GLUED to these news reports. Didn't Arthur C. Clarke land the Chinese on Titan in 2063 or 3001, only to be eat by a methane-sea monster? Of course, Imperial Earth has Titan colonized.
I've been entranced by these pictures and realizing, as have you, that this is not entirely unlike digging up a miniature monolith on the moon - we're exposing something to the collective consciousness of the only intelligence (we know of) in the universe. We've got our shovel stuck in untilled earth, about to turn over the soil for the first time in history, but there is a whole world sitting there on the blade of the shovel.
The scope of the mysteries these first data suggest only reinforces my awe. It's not like Mars - "These mysterious lines appear to be liquid erosion." It's like, "Pretty pictures, huh? The best and brightest of the world can't figure out what's in those clouds, but we detect dim rocks in distant galaxies by watching the stars wobble." Argh! I want to go to Titan!
I don't know, maybe I've finally just flipped out on something. I want to wallpaper my living room with pictures from Cassini. That's normal, right? I just gotta know what is down there. Put me on the slow spaceship to Saturn and I'll turn into the half-crazed captain who sacrifices everything and jeopardizes his whole crew to complete the mission. Hell, me and HAL would be best friends. Screw you naysayers, I MUST KNOW what's on Titan.
I'm practically counting down the days until the landing probe touches the surface.
Sounds like the surface may be semisolid then, perhaps slushy.
Of course, I don't really know what a reasonable swell size in a planet-wide (alright, moon-wide) methane ocean would be.. 100m? With the wind data they've recorded, I wouldn't be shocked.
But let me stress - I'm not even an amateur physicist or astrononmer, I'm merely fascinated by this story.
First off I'm not a chemist so please excuse me if this is totally off base.
Is it possible that the surface of Titan is basically a hydrocarbon mix that is basically like slush or jelly? With the cold temperature and higher atmospheric pressure wouldn't that turn all the ethane and methane into something not unlike diesel fuel when its really cold? This would explain the relative smooth face of Titan
Hmmm...maybe the Huygens probe will just bounce when it lands.
The world isn't run by weapons anymore, or energy, or money. It's run by little ones and zeroes, little bits of data.
Based on the radar data, Titan is extremely flat. I've also seen on the posts here that people expect it to have some tetonics, or heat inside the planet due to all the stress of hanging around saturn.
Is it possible that the reason the satellite is so smooth is because of some erosion? If the weather conditions are hostile, and throw in that the clouds might consist of polymers, then that would just tear everything to shreds.
I would think that proximity to a large planet would make any moon less likely to meteorite impact, since meteors and comets would be more attracted to the planet's gravity instead of the moon's. Some theorisize that Jupiter is what keeps big comets from smashing into Earth and killing more dinosaurs.