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Titan's Smooth Surface Baffles Scientists

Posted by michael on from the that's-no-moon! dept.

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.

2 of 319 comments (clear)

  1. At last by The+Bungi · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I remember reading Carl Sagan's Cosmos and thinking (as he did) that Titan was the most interesting body in the Solar System outside of the Earth (sorry, I'm a terran chauvinist).

    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.

  2. Re:A Little Perspective by back_pages · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Man this isn't lost on me.

    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.