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Possible Cryovolcano Discovered on Titan
Rei writes "NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is reporting that the Cassini spacecraft has observed what appears to be a cryovolcano on Saturn's moon Titan. Given the absense of a global methane sea on Titan, the snail-shaped structure with what appears to be a caldera on top could explain how Titan's methane stays replenished. It could further explain the dry drainage channels discovered by the Huygens lander as being formed by heavy methane rainfall after eruptions."
Excellent, just what the Galaxy needs - a farting moon.
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
" appears to be a caldera on top could explain how Titan's methane stays replenished" I thought it was after the Canopy group acquired Caldera that the hot air came forth.... hrm. It would explain the drainage too...
Maybe it's a $cientology Dianetics franchise? They always use (Xenu) volcanoes in their advertising.
Unlike terrestrial volcanic mounds, which are formed by the upwelling of lava, the hypothesis is that this feature is probably formed by plumes of frozen methane, forced from underground, which then slowly evaporate into methane gas. This would explain the abundance of methane in the Titan atmosphere. Titan is the only moon in the solar system to have a substantial atmosphere, a thick mix of nitrogen and methane. It is suspected to be undergoing chemical reactions similar to those that unfolded on Earth billions of years ago. That process eventually provided the conditions for life on our planet. Scientists have long pondered the source of Titan's methane, given that this chemical should have been degraded by the weak light from the Sun within a hundred million years or so.
After all, I am strangely colored.
... methane can be found at Jupiter and Saturn, Oberon, Miranda and Titania... Neptune, Titan...
astronomy dominee
I bet schools close a lot there.
"The forecast today is for periods of clear nitrogen, followed by an earthquake, the raining methane for the rest of the afternoon. Film at eleven."
"Cryovolcanoes are pseudo-volcanoes believed to be present on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. Unlike volcanoes on Earth which spew hot lava, cryvolcanoes bring super-cool "lava" to the surface of their planets. They are volcanic-like vents that spew forth ice, water or vapor-phase volatiles, with some gas driven solid fragments instead of lava. It is suggetsed that they could be present on Titan, one of Saturn's moons. However it has only been seen on Triton, the biggest of Neptune's moons. Also it is said that they might be active in Europa and Enceladus.
This term was coined by NASA in late 2004, when the Cassini space probe observed cryvolcanoes and cryogenic lakes for the first time."
definition quoted from explore-dictionary.com
sig.
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day show a nice picture of this.
If you're interested in this stuff, bookmark http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html, which just points to the current picture of the day.
Please stop misusing Catch-22 to describe chicken-egg problems or other paradoxes that are not Catch-22.
A lightsabre battle, while ice-skating on a frozen planet.
to the phrase "titanic methane eruption".
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
Meanwhile, the idiots on these remote asteroids have volcanos and seas full of the stuff and are doing absolutely nothing to exploit it.
Rummy really needs to get out there with some ex-military contractors and get started on the pipeline. Looks like there's not too much risk of anyone firing RPGs at the construction force, either.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
I originally read that headline as "Possible Cryptovolcano Discovered on Titan", and found myself oddly excited -- even if I have no idea what a Cryptovolcano might be.
Doesn't it seem like sometimes science is just making shit up?
Shape of... an ice volcano!
Dear Will, the plums were poisoned. -- Cheese Club
Titan is the only moon in the solar system to have a substantial atmosphere
Triton, Neptune's large moon also has a substantial Nitrogen atmosphere, enough to entrain geyser plumes that move downwind. Ganymede has a thin atmosphere as well.
the hypothesis is that this feature is probably formed by plumes of frozen methane, forced from underground, which then slowly evaporate into methane gas.
It will be interesting to see what style of volcanism dominates on Titan - "cryoclastic" eruptions of methane gas and ammonia-hydrate ice crystals, or gooey water/hydrocarbon flows. The light colored lobate features surrounding the caldera in the TIMS image suggests the later. The apparent ring faults surrounding the caldera also suggest that this is a shield profile volcano built by effusive eruptions. It will be interesting to measure its profile with Cassini's radar to find out for sure.
an ill wind that blows no good
Given the absense of a global methane sea on Titan, the snail-shaped structure with what appears to be a caldera on top could explain how Titan's methane stays replenished.
Having not known that 'caldera' was anything other than sco's former name, I of course looked it up in wikipedia:
A caldera is a volcanic feature formed by the collapse of a volcano into itself.
It seems like sco should have stayed with this name, it's much more apropos.
I don't know why this hasn't received more coverage: Iapetus
Maybe you've all seen this already, so I don't know if anyone cares. Basically, Iapetus is not spherical! It is an enormous Buckmister-Fuller skeletal structure! It has also been observed from earth (with radio telescopes) to have a dull, uniform radar signature despite its obvious surface features - but consistent with its unusual, non-spherical geometry. ie: it's stealthy!
There is a 60 000 foot high 'wall' around its equator - perfectly around its equator. This is an impossibly coincidental geological feature. But again, it is empirically consistent with a gradual surface erosion which will reveal an underlying bucky-fuller skeleton.
What could very possibly be an alien artefact has been hushed up. NASA continually draws more attention to Titan, but it's the outermost Iapetus that is far more intriguing. If it wasn't so, how come NASA has scheduled an originally unplanned second flyby?! No, I am not wearing a tin-foil hat!
Don't be fooled by the "Titan smokescreen" (my term for it). Iapetus ('eye-app-e-tis') is the truly significant Cassini investigation.
Enjoy,
Raj
TFA says there is no methane ocean on Titan. I thought that's what the "large black Lake-like" features were. I think I missed something... When was it established that those weren't hydrocarbon lakes?
The Hyugens probe appearently landing on one of those "lakes". They speculate that it is a dried-out lake-bed. Appearently it fills up when the vocanos errupt.
Table-ized A.I.