Tantalizing Clues in Pictures of Saturn's Moons

Aziabel writes "Titan and Dione, two of the moons orbiting Saturn, apparently aren't exactly what researchers had previously believed. Photographs taken during a flyby of the Cassini space probe this week may clarify and even overturn long-held assumptions about the surfaces of these satellites. Bright streaks on the surface of Dione, a heavily cratered moon with little atmosphere, have long been believed to be ice, noted Carolyn Porco, imaging team leader for the Cassini project from the Space Science Institute in Boulder. Images captured this week, however, appear to indicate that the bright streaks are cliffs. They may have been created by ice, but not a lot of ice remains in the area. Meanwhile, the 'ocean' on Titan may not be. Instead of a liquid body of water, the dark mass seen on the surface of the Titan may be a viscous fluid flowing onto the white 'coastline,' Parco said. Then again, the viscous fluid could be flowing down from a higher altitude, like a glacier, onto the white mass. Right now, researchers only have two-dimensional images. Stronger conclusions may be possible with the availability later of images that are more precise, or stereoscopic images that include shadows or information on altitude."

Comments

what is your problem???

[jeif1k]

$3 billion or however much it was, 6 years of waiting and now they can't figure out what the pictures are showing.

Of course, they can't figure out what these pictures are showing. It often takes years to evaluate that kind of data fully and come to conclusions. That's to be expected when embarking on new scientific territory. We may not even get the answers we seek with Huygens either. It may take many more probes to get an idea of what Titan is like; we don't even know yet what's seeping out of the crater walls on Mars.

With how much has been invested in this mission, I'm sure the scientists are going crazy to present the public with findings (or at least the PR people are)

They are getting data from publicly funded instruments and they are putting it on the web as soon as they can. They are also annotating it with their first impressions and theories. That doesn't mean that they are "going crazy", it means that you are seeing science in action: raw data, hypotheses, debates, and all that. These people are doing a great job. I really don't see what your problem is with all that.

Until then, quit confusing me.

Just don't look, then; you'll get the Discovery channel version quickly enough.