Lake spotted on Titan?

jahead writes "It looks like a lake has been seen on Saturn's moon Titan by the Cassini probe. But don't get too excited yet. As mentioned by Elizabeth Turtle in the article, it could also be a dried up lake that left dark deposits."

Comments

Act now!!!

[1967mustangman]

And now, for a limited time only, I can sell you lake front property on said lake on Titan for the astonishingly low price of $20 an acre!!!

Re:Act now!!!

[farker haiku]

You think that's something? I own the bridge that crosses the lake. I'll sell it for the reasonable price of $5,000.

What would be the significance of this?

[bc90021]

I'm not trolling, I'm curious. Surely, liquids exist in space, and surely they must pool? If it were a *water* lake I'd say that'd be something (life!?), but on a planet where there's likely methane rain, there's likely methane lakes.

Re:What would be the significance of this?

[bc90021]

What do you moderators not understand about "I'm not trolling, I'm curious."? I'm looking for more knowledgeable people in the Slashdot community to answer the question of the finding's significance. It's one thing to find something, and report it, but TFA gives no reason as to why this is important. Does it allow for future bases on Titan to somehow suck up methane for fuel? Is there the possibilty of methane-based life that might live in a methane lake? I'd like to know why this is important.

Re:What would be the significance of this?

[bc90021]

No, I didn't realise that. Now I do. I'll not use that in the future. Thanks. ;)

Re:What would be the significance of this?

[ProfaneBaby]

It's based primarily on the assumption that liquid pools are more likely to harbor the beginnings of 'some form' of life. Methane, being a carbon derivative, could perhaps provide the initial basis for simple lifeforms.

I basically agree with you - the 'wow' factor is nice, but the true value is still pretty questionable.

Re:What would be the significance of this?

[p3d0]

Surely, liquids exist in space, and surely they must pool?

Amazingly, no. This would make Titan only the second known celestial body that currently has liquid on its surface.

Liquids require pressure (see this) while solids and gasses don't, and pressure is a rare thing in space.

Re:What would be the significance of this?

[mazarin5]

Well, besides beings merely interesting, it's nice to see what were previously thought to be Earth-unique features on other bodies. Lakes and rivers aren't really found anywhere else, maybe at one point Mars, and maybe longer ago on Venus. To find a lake and a full water cycle, even if it's really methane, is significant because that brings our counter of objects which have lakes and rain up to 2. The more often we see simliar features and objects on other bodies, the more we can expect to find a useful combination of those same features out there sometime in the distant future. For some, it's comforting to know that you're not a fluke.

Re:What would be the significance of this?

[AnonymousJackass]

I think the major thing of interest here is that Titan is so different to any body in our solar system (other than Earth, of course). The fact that liquid of any kind exists is quite remarkable. It means it has been able to retain pretty much all of it's initial components, unlike most other rocky bodies that heat up and lose a lot of their original constituents. Titan is, I believe, a kind of mini proto-planet. It's similar to how Earth would've been when it was young. The difference, however, is that Earth was in a position to heat up and eveolve, whereas Titan is perpetually frozen. There's a lot of fascinating science there.

As for methane-based life, I think it's unlikely just because of the extraordinarily low temperatures on there.

Re:What would be the significance of this?

[AviLazar]

That is because mod's are fickle idiots. They don't agree with something so mod it troll. I get meta-mods two-three times a day...if i see yours i will meta-mod it. :)


On the whole, I agree with you - this is not that impressive. I don't think anyone is going to say "hey lets go swim in liquid methane"...if it was water I would be more impressed. Obviously on a planet that rain's methane there would be a buildup of methane which would equate to a pool. It's like being shocked we have lakes full of water!

Re:What would be the significance of this?

[neil.pearce]

What about lava?
Doesn't Venus have lava on its surface?

Re:What would be the significance of this?

[wwest4]

I think the evidence points to lots of ancient volcanism, but no current activity. Venus does have lots of atmosphere and pressure, but it's probably been dry on the surface for a long time now.

Re:What would be the significance of this?

[Kombat]

You would hope us humans would have learned out lesson about draining the natural resources by then.

Uhm, not to be obtuse, but why shouldn't we drain and use the oil here on Earth? Do you think that if we leave it in the ground, it'll somehow eventually turn back into dinosaurs? It's a plentiful, efficient, portable, cheap (relative to the alternatives) energy source.

The problem with oil isn't that we're using it - it's that we have no plan to handle the byproducts produced by using it. The pollution is the problem. Global warming, smog, and all that. There's no benefit to leaving the oil in the ground and switching to more expensive energy sources before it's necessary.

Re:What would be the significance of this?

[Leroy_Brown242]

"The problem with oil isn't that we're using it - it's that we have no plan to handle the byproducts produced by using it."

So the hangover is the problem, not the drinking?

One is caused by the other. If we can't effectivly eliminate the issues our planet suffers by using fossil fuels, then we need to stop.

Re:What would be the significance of this?

[Alex P Keaton in da]

From my limited astronomy background (wasn't my major, but it fascinated me so I paid attention): Through modeling, we can assume that what holds on Earth, should hold on other planets, other galaxies etc.
I think what we are forgeting is that it seems that we know less about space than sometimes we think. For example, if memory serves me right, there is a lot of dark matter in the fringes of the galaxy- we know it is there because something is having an effect on other bodies there, however we can't detect it because it doesn't seem to emit any known energy source... (Caveat- I am not an astronomer, just a hobbyist, so take my assertion with a salt grain)
So in my line of reasoning, it seems that this lake on Titan may not have the same characteristics as a similar lake on Earth, for a plethora of reasons that we may not understand yet.
All that aside, how cool would it be to swim on another planet, even if in a lake of methane...
And for those with tinfoil hats- keep in mind that some assume that we don't get real info from NASA- such as those who say that gravity on the moon is much closer to the Earth's gravity, unlike what we are told, but this can't be released because it would throw a Geurilla Wrench into the theory of relativity....

Re:What would be the significance of this?

[htrp]

What we mean to say is that on planets that have any kind of atmosphere, there will be some kind of fluid present. If you look at a phase diagram (crack out your old chem books), you'll realize that liquids can only exist at certain temperatures and pressures before becoming either solid or gas. As the majority of space is rather cold and the pressure is rather low, this tends to favor the formation of solids and gases.

As for your venus question, I would venture to imagine that lava, as a higly viscous fluid would remain liquid at a relatively low pressure. The other mention is that the surface of venus is basically a massive cooking oven from all of the cloud cover of various Sulfur oxides, which would provide both sufficient temperature (from the greenhouse effect) as well as indicate a high amount of atmospheric pressure.

What's significant about this was that it was initially hypothesized that since titan had a considerable atmosphere of methane and other hydrocarbons, that the surface of Titan was possibly covered in either a massive liquid methane ocean or a methane ice sheet. However once the Huygens probe landed, that hypothesis was disproved (the one about liquid methane on the surface).

With what looks like a lakebed (even if it's dry) on the surface of Titan, this provides evidence that there once was/still is some liquid which eroded the landscape, which confirms that Titan's atmosphere may be more substantial than other planet's and that it may be more like earth.

Re:What would be the significance of this?

[KamaDragon]

Liquids require pressure (see this) while solids and gasses don't, and pressure is a rare thing in space.

I guess I do not understand your meaning. If anything, a solid requires more pressure than a liquid. If you have a system (held isothermal) composed of a gas and you increase the pressure, what happens? It condenses to a liquid. Continue to increase the pressure, and then what? Your liquid freezes to a solid.

Given the context of space, I think I see your intention. That is, at extremely low temperatures a pressure change would most likely result in either sublimation or deposition. However, on a celestial body you can get greater temperatures than that of the vacuum of space.

Re:What would be the significance of this?

[HiredMan]

but why shouldn't we drain and use the oil here on Earth?

See your answer below.

The pollution is the problem. Global warming, smog, and all that.

"It's not the shooting that's the problem... it's the holes poked in everything! Just because we don't have a solution now is no reason to stop shooting indiscriminately."

=tkk

Re:What would be the significance of this?

[mopomi]

Umm. . . No.

Io was the second known body to have liquids on its surface (1979 Voyager flybys discovered active, extrusive volcanism). Titan was next, though we couldn't see through the clouds, so we had no idea. Triton was the fourth to possibly have liquids on its surface, though we still don't know for sure. Venus also likely has some liquid lava on its surface, though we've not seen actual volcanism. Plus, Venus probably sometimes has sulfuric acid rains, but we're not sure. Mars may also have transient liquids on its surface.

Titan's cool because it's probably got an active hydrologic cycle (don't read hydro- to mean water, read it to mean fluid). Earth does, Venus might, Io has. . . something, Mars had one, it might still, occasionally. Triton has. . .something, and that's about it for the bodies in the solar system.

Earth is a big body, so it still has radionuclide heat, and it's close to the sun, so it's got an abundance of energy to drive a hydrologic cycle. We can't see through Venus' clouds with more than RADAR, so we don't know what's going on there. Mars is small, so its heat has mostly left it, and it gets nearly 1/4 the energy the Earth gets from the sun, so it's cold and has little atmosphere left. Io is in a weird, slightly eccentric, orbital resonance, so its energy comes at the expense of Jupiter (and Ganymede and Europa). Titan's also in an eccentric orbit, but it doesn't have the resonance with other sats that Io has, so it "should" have lost most of its energy--one of the mysteries is why such a small body has such a huge atmosphere (and thus a hydrologic cycle). Triton might have a bit of an atmosphere, and why is also a mystery.

So, of the many, many bodies in the solar system, there are only a few that have atmospheres, and fewer that have an active, observable hydrologic cycle. . .

Re:What would be the significance of this?

[cowscows]

that's sort of a silly analogy, because shooting indiscriminately doesn't really result in anything productive. We aren't burning billions of gallons of oil per day just for fun. Fossil fuels have helped us create all sorts of neat technology and culture and things.

Who knows if we would've gotten this far without them. Is it realistically possible to go from water and wood burning straight to nuclear and solar? Could we have made the leaps in technology that we have without such a cheap and abundant energy source waiting for us right in the dirt?

Fossil fuels have been quite a step in our energy generation timeline. It has had plenty of unforeseen consequences, but that's life. Now, you can certainly argue that humanity, as a whole, is dragging its feet instead of moving along to the next step, but that doesn't mean that fossil fuels are evil or have been a waste of humanity's time.

Let me try and balance out your analogy with one of my own:
Walking is more efficient for humans than crawling, yet we don't scold babies for crawling on all fours instead of running around on two feet. We understand that it's one step in the process, and as a child grows, it makes better choices and becomes more efficient with its energy.

Fly Fishing

[Shadow Wrought]

And the Space tourism boon gets another boost.

Great deal

[autopr0n]

Once prices go up, the government will just seize it under eminent domain!

Re:Great deal

[telecsan]

How are prices going to go up near a lake of liquid methane? Talk about a stinky place to live...

Re:Great deal

[IEEEMonkey]

Actually Methane gas has no odor. We add impurities to it in order to make it detectable.

Strewth...

[gowen]

I knew Ricki Lake had a fat ass, but I didn't know you could see it from space.

Re:Strewth...

[macaulay805]

and think of how long the dark deposits have been sitting there when the probes found 'em.

Not a lake

[Glog]

The announcement was later rectracted by NASA officials after it was confirmed that the "dried-up lake" was, in fact, Joan Rivers vacationing in the new Klingon botox retreat.

Got a match?

[tzuriel]

In other news, Titan went up in flames earlier this morning when a careless tourist ignored the "No Smoking" signs clearly posted in the vicinity of "Methane Lake". When will these off-worlders learn to pay attention?

Re:Got a match?

[CausticPuppy]

Come on... even us ignorant off-worlders are smart enough to know that methane won't burn in the absence of oxygen.

It could also be..

[erikkemperman]

But don't get too excited yet [...] it could also be a dried up lake that left dark deposits.

IANA rocket scientist but.. Would we not be excited if it turned out to be a lake -- dried up or otherwise? I mean, are dried-up lakes often found out there, relative to not-yet-dried-up ones? Just curious.

So there's this feature...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

...clearly visible and 235km across that looks like a like. Previosuly a probe landed on Titan photographing lakelike features all the way down. And the only way people can be sure it is a lake is by viewing the feature from the right angle to see if it glints in the sun. 235km across! I don't know about you, but if that's the best they can do, I think they loaded up Cassini and Huygens with the wrong set of instruments.

Re:So there's this feature...

[hcob$]

Actually, I think it's an elegantly simple solution to a complex problem. To detect "lakes" by other means would likely require a device that performs many varied tasks consistantly and have the ability to survive a space trip. Also, it would most likely be a highly dedicated piece of equipment taking up valuable space. Not to mention, how do you detect if something is liquid from orbit??? If you have an easy answer, I'm sure NASA would LOVE to hear it. Also, they were going to have cameras anyway for pictures and such. So being the physics/flight path calculating gods that they are, they were able to tell that in some of the flybys they were going to be at a 90 degree angle and can just point a camera at the object and quickly know if it was a lake. A secondary use for a relatively small piece of equipment is a much more desirable approach to another piece of equiment that may or may not even be used...... I think it's pretty obviuos that they chose the right equipment.

Re:So there's this feature...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Eh? You can see features 235km across on the Moon (ie. Earth's satellite) with the naked eye. The Moon is about 400,000km from Earth.

Re:Tough troll

[daniil]

You're weak, dude. Let me show you how it's done:

A few weeks ago, a lake mysteriously went missing in Russia. Back then, many people suspected that the lake had gotten fed up with the villagers throwing garbage into it, and just walked away. I guess we now know where it went :7

Re:Light please!

[MightyMartian]

There's no free oxygen in Titan's atmosphere. You couldn't even get the match to burn.

Any sign of any...

[centauri]

Sirens?

The wrong set of instruments

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they loaded up Cassini and Huygens with the wrong set of instruments.

The instruments on Cassini and Huygens are revealing Titan as place worthy of much further exploration. I thought the reveal of a river bed like structure on an ice moon was worth the price of admission alone. Total success in my book, if nothing more these missions define what we might want to send in subsequent probes.

Re:Interesting, but...

[sarastro_us]

Wrong planet, wrong moon. Europa is a moon of Jupiter. Titan is a moon of Saturn.

Look in the volcano

[EccentricAnomaly]

Sunlight breaks down methane, so to have it in Titan's atmosphere (particularly at such high levels) it has to be continually replaced. You can make methane on Titan via either life or some sort of weird chemical process. So the methane is a hint at possible life.

Titan's atmosphere is also full of a haze of complex organic molecules that continually rain down on the surface... leaving deposits of hydrocarbons on the surface hundreds of meters thick.

Now if only these complex organics could get mixed in with water. (And it has to be water, because you need the oxygen). Guess what 'rocks' on Titan are made out of :)

So you might have something happening in this methane lake with methane being the liquid and oxygen coming from ice... but this would be completely different from life as we know it...

My own bet is on the volcano to look for life (The volcano on Titan erupts molten water). Also there might be life in Titan's mantle (it's made of liquid water + ammonia mixture).

(This website: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/products/pro duct-presentations.cfm has lots of good inside information about the science results... the end of the "Titan: First Views of an Alien World" discusses where to look for life on Titan)

Interesting thought to ponder and discuss.

[Heem]

So we are sending all these probes.. Mars and Titan for example.

What if one of them returned images of cities, or villages, either deserted or actively inhabited. - What do you think would happen? Would there be a giant cover up? Or maybe a giant newsflash? Would those responsible for the probe just publically "forget" that they ever sent a probe there?

Can we handle the alternative?

[Shivetya]

The reliance on fossil fuels does put limits on our energy expenditures. If we do succeed in producing fusion power cheaply we will have a new form of pollution; heat. Even if we move to non-polluting forms of energy production other than nuclear we will still be left with heat. In my opinion once you remove the spectre of visible pollution that we have with today's fossil plants many people will be hard convinced that there is any pollution left, after all its "green power".

While we all can agree mankind affects his global environment we cannot agree to what extent he does. Everyday something new comes up that throws a wrench into every argument made pro and con. Understanding more about how other planets work may lead to better insights here.

News Flash: Titan's atmosphere wiped out

[clem9796]

Huygens> Affirmative, parachute deployed.

Cassini> Can you see anything down there yet?

Huygens> Not really, it's pretty dark.

Cassini> Turn on your flashlight.

Huygens> Alright, taking it out... aw crap, I dropped it, not gettin that one back, I'm still at 10,000 meters.

Cassini> Oh that sucks, what about your water proof matches? Says here in the manual that we should use them in case of emergency.

Huygens> Well, it's better than sitting here in the dark... Taking them out, opening the box, I'll use two jus... *carrier terminated*

Cassini> Huygens? Huygens respond. Come on back now. Uh, Houston.. we have a problem.