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Titan Moon's Bright Hot Spot

Posted by Zonk on from the shiiiiiny dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Saturn's largest moon, Titan, has been the target of great interest because of its unusual pre-biotic chemistry and thick atmosphere. The Colorado-Boulder Space Science Institute announced a new mystery today involving a persistently bright spot, perhaps one of four possibilities. The spot could be a surface coloration, a mountain range, a cloud, or a hot spot."

6 of 201 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Life, the Universe, Everything... by carterhawk001 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    God to humanity:
    Oh yeah...theres life outside earth, must have slipped my mind 2000 years ago.....

  2. Re:Life, evolution, everything... by Che+Guevarra · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm sorry. I'm a big space explorer. Without sounding too preachy, I just meant to say that I'm a "Christian" scientist who is willing to admit that natural selection and a lot of other things might be true. And without making apologies, I was also trying to hedge bets because I see the truth in the natural order of things but I didn't know the 400 pound angry guy was going to jump
    .

  3. We are so primitive by nate+nice · · Score: 3, Interesting

    We have billions of stars in this galaxy alone capable of maybe supporting life. Then there are billions more galaxies we have zero information about. At least 1289712 of them have to have life. The universe is amazing. It's hilarious we are studying planets in our solar system. Oh man, I wish I lived 5000 years from and maybe more. I can't wait until we figure out how to exploit light speed and really way beyond. Light speed is too slow actually. Anyways, anyone that says we are alone in space is crazy. There has to be aliens everywhere. Whaaaa!!!!!

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  4. Re:Life, evolution, everything... by Camel+Pilot · · Score: 4, Interesting
    time for obligitory Sagan quote:

    How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, 'This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant'? Instead they say, 'No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.' A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.
  5. Re:Life, evolution, everything... by renoX · · Score: 2, Interesting

    > As an atheist, I hope you can appreciate that atheism is a religious viewpoint as well.

    Nope, because my point of view 'there is no god' is falsifiable: if I'm witness to real miracles, I'd become religious (religious as in beleiving in supreme beings not as being part of a particular religion of course), wouldn't you?

    Which make this *very different* from the faith of religious people.

    As for your meetings that you say are equivalent as "going to church": usually when people go to church, they do it to pray, so..

    For the rest, I'm French and we do have very strict limitations on religious right of people in the schools, and I agree with those. And we have no backlash, currently at least..

  6. It's not "hot" by JetJaguar · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I work peripherally with some of the Cassini people, and the "hot spot" theory has been more or less abandoned. Radar observations have already confirmed that the spot isn't glowing or emitting energy on it's own. But they still don't know what it is.

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