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Cassini's Robot Lab Successfully Separates

toomanyairmiles writes "The BBC has an article indicating NASA's Cassini probe has successfully launched its robot lab on its three-week journey into the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan. 'Such is the chemistry and temperature (-180C) on Titan that scientists suspect it may harbour lakes, even great seas, of methane or ethane.' Seemingly we have very little idea of what we'll find there: 'Even Cassini's remarkable instruments have struggled to get at the facts. Scientists can see dark and bright regions on the surface, but quite what they represent no one is really sure.'"

8 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. Black and white by karvind · · Score: 1, Funny
    "Scientists can see dark and bright regions on the surface, but quite what they represent no one is really sure"

    What .. they are still using B&W television over there.

  2. Sploosh by Faust7 · · Score: 2, Funny

    there is every possibility that Huygens will make a splashdown

    And, if the BBC's pic is correct, it will look almost exactly like an upended Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

  3. Ever see 2010? by Faust7 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Scientists can see dark and bright regions on the surface, but quite what they represent no one is really sure.

    My money's on the dark regions being a plague of multiplying monoliths. Cover your eyes...

  4. Re:And in other news by FIT_Entry1 · · Score: 1, Funny

    you misspelled "mispell".

  5. Demonic discovery? by Xentropy · · Score: 4, Funny

    I find the random insertion by /. of a large Doom 3 ad (consisting of a closeup of a demonic figure) right after the text of this article an amusing irony. Just what DO we expect to find down there?

  6. Re:Great! by Zerth · · Score: 2, Funny

    Somewhere, there is a scraggle-toothed man saying "That thar's cheap for such a purty fella!"

  7. opinions by morcheeba · · Score: 4, Funny

    Even Cassini's remarkable instruments have struggled to get at the facts.

    From what I heard, the instruments were just giving their opinions, ruminations, and vague rumors. One even broke into song, which, from a scientific viewpoint, yielded very little hard data...

  8. Re:An open door. by 2A · · Score: 2, Funny

    Untrue. We'll immediately launch another probe with devices for detecting interplanetary WMDs, get bored waiting for it to get conclusive results, and so send bigger ships to liberate the methan^H^H^H^H^H^Htitans...

    Or maybe the TV appeals will start: "there's been life discovered on the moon, Titan. These lifeforms don't know the love and teachings of Jesus. We need you to donate money so we can build our own spaceship, so we can spread to word of Jesus to these so called 'Marklah'."

    But most likely, both will happen.