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!!!

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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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.

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?

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)