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Pictures of Titan's Lakes

Posted by samzenpus on from the in-space-nobody-can-hear-you-fish dept.

sighted writes "For decades, scientists have wondered if the thick orange haze that shrouds Saturn's giant moon Titan hid lakes of liquid methane on the surface, but there was no way to confirm it, until now. The Cassini flyby of July 22, 2006 took these striking images and were released today."

11 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. Confirmed? by Cthefuture · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You mean "more evidence suggesting liquid"?

    Hardly proof.

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  2. why is liquid methane a big deal? by Eto_Demerzel79 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I can understand that if we found liquid water elsewhere in the solar system it should make news, but who cares about liquid methane? Afterall Jupiter (http://www.nineplanets.org/jupiter.html) has "exotic" liquid metallic hydrogen and liquid helium. I doubt it is possible to drive any biologically important reactions at the temperatures present on Titan. We simply confirmed that our knowledge of the methane phase diagram is correct. Let me know if they find something useful, like platinum or palladium on Phobos...

    1. Re:why is liquid methane a big deal? by darkonc · · Score: 4, Interesting
      The reactions that we're used to will obviously not work on Titan, but there's always a (very small) possibility that other forms of life could could evolve in the context of methane seas. If nothing else, a liquid base would allow simple life forms to develop without having to figure out the physics of supporting themselves and move around (as per the way that life is believed to have evolved on earth).

      However, given that just about any chemical process is gonna run rather slow at the kinds of temperatures that exist on Titan we shouldn't expect any life that we find there to be very developed.

      The next obvious step is to send something down to swim in the methane oceans of titan, and see if it gets eaten (or, at least, finds signs of (non)organic life. I don' think that it's that much lower a probability than finding life signs on mars (presuming that we figure out how to look for methane-based life), although it's admittedly a bit more expensive to go to Jupiter than it is to go to Mars.

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    2. Re:why is liquid methane a big deal? by CorSci81 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I worked on this project as a grad student at Caltech, so I think I may actually have something useful to add. The reason we care is that Titan is the only other body in the solar system to exhibit anything remotely analogous to a hydrological cycle at Earth-like atmospheric pressure, and with observable surface geology. This is useful because it gives us a solar system analog to weather, hydrology, and hydrological weathering; which will benefit us in understanding how our own planet works. The only other planets that are remotely similar are Venus and Mars, which aren't that similar. If you can get past the temperature issue and replace water with methane/ethane Titan has the most Earth-like atmosphere of any other planet. That's why this is a big deal.

    3. Re:why is liquid methane a big deal? by Urkki · · Score: 2, Interesting
      It seems extremely unlikely that the kinds of chemical reactions necessary for any kind of life could occur.

      To me, it seems extremely unlikely that we could give any kind of reliable estimate on how unlikely that is...

      OTOH, all we'd need is a version of Urey-Miller experiment that used (our best guess of) the chemicals and the environment of Titan. Then let it simmer for a time, and see if any promising complex chain forming molecules (such as our amino acids) appeared... I wonder if anybody has attempted such and experiment.
    4. Re:why is liquid methane a big deal? by Eto_Demerzel79 · · Score: 2, Interesting
      OTOH, all we'd need is a version of Urey-Miller experiment that used (our best guess of) the chemicals and the environment of Titan. Then let it simmer for a time, and see if any promising complex chain forming molecules (such as our amino acids) appeared... I wonder if anybody has attempted such and experiment.
      It would definitely be worth a try if you had the glassware laying around but the temperature is still a problem. A more likely source for amino acids in an environment like Titan would probably be asteroids.
  3. Here's a question... by robogymnast · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why did it take them 6 months to release the images?

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  4. OK, still the question is unanswered by wallet55 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    it is good that the liqid question is answered, as liquid methane is somthing that some view as possible environ of life, just as those who believe water on Mars means likely life. The issue though is whether conditions were ever favorable enough, long enough for life to develope. If we establish Titan's parameters, and Mar's parameters, we might come up with some of the values in drakes equation http://www.activemind.com/Mysterious/Topics/SETI/d rake_equation.html the answeres might not be what we want, however

  5. Titan by Stephen Baxter by AHuxley · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A fun read. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(Stephen_Baxter )

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  6. "What have you done for us lately?" by patio11 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    If you don't produce a steady stream of non-achievements people might start saying things like "Hey, what did that 3.26 billion dollars (http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/faq/mission.cfm) we just gave you for the Cassini project actually accomplish?" This way, you can say "Hey, the Cassini project CONFIRMED the existence of LIQUID which is almost like WATER which is a prerequisite for LIFE which would be the BIGGEST DISCOVERY EVER."

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  7. Wake us up when you actually have something wet... by Richard+Kirk · · Score: 1, Interesting
    Mister Grumpy writes...

    I don't think this is conclusive. As one of the other earlier posts said, they have taken the rough areas and coloured them rock colour, and taken the smooth areas and coloured them water colour. At the edge of these 'lake' features there are intermediate regions which are pretty flat and might be either shallow lake or a flat shore. Or something else completly different.

    The article suggests we will in time know what we have. It is probably not sand because there aren't any dunes. If they are lakes, then the lake height ought to change with the seasons. In the meantime colouring it blue isn't really helping.

    When I was a lad, Venus was believed to have huge oceans of soda water. Mars had a canal system. Tintin 'Destination Moon' book had underground ice on the moon. In the last fifty years we have visited all sorts of extraordinary places, and everywhere has turned out to be pretty dry. The lander shots of Titan looked just like a coastline, but that was not wet. There is an intriguing trickle of something in a crater on Mars. So far, the more we look, the less we find, and the more sceptical I get. Is this sort of thing really necessary to get funding for space exploration?