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Titan May Have Water Ocean Under the Surface
RedEaredSlider writes "NASA's Cassini probe, in orbit around Saturn, may have discovered evidence for a liquid water ocean under the surface of Titan, Saturn's largest moon. The data comes from radar observations of the surface that measure Titan's rotation and tell how it is oriented relative to the plane of its orbit — its axial tilt. According to a paper to be published in an upcoming issue of Astronomy and Astrophysics (preprint PDF at arXiv.org), the new data showed that many of the planet's surface features were in the wrong place, sometimes off by as much as 30 kilometers (19 miles). Titan always presents the same face toward Saturn, just like the Moon does to Earth. But in those situations, one expects that the moon will be in the 'Cassini state,' which means that the axial tilt will have a certain value. In Titan's case, the axial tilt was measured at 0.3 degrees. That seemed too high if one assumed Titan was a solid body."
I'd like to get a ticket for a swim. Even if it is one-way, it should provide good stuff for a blog to fill. I might even have (new) friends on facebook who I can invite for a fishing trip.
Sort of reminds me of lyrics from the Talking Heads song "Once In A Life Time"
" under the rocks and stones there is water"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1wg1DNHbNU
Haven't they been saying this for a while now??? I remember seeing something like this a while back
Nothing here... So... SHOOO!!!
I think we have a higher chance of finding water on Europa than on titan.
That's one small swim for a man, one giant leap for mankind.
Having an ocean under the ice doesn't mean water, it might be methane something or other instead.
I seem to remember reading some very old sci-fi stories by the late Arthur Clarke that had this possibility as a theme.
It doesn't matter, apart from an interesting scientific study. Once they are able to get people to the moon or mars profitably, then we can start worrying about water.
I really doubt this. If you wikipedia titan moon you'll see the temperature is -179 degrees celius.
At what pressure beneath the surface? Remember, water is a weirdo substance where liquid takes up less volume than solid. increase the pressure enough and H2O below 0C will still be liquid. Plus, -179C is the surface temperature. Perhaps the core is warmer?
Yep, I think the internal heat is tidally generated like Europa. Saturn's gravity stretches Titan at some times more than others, and this stretching causes friction and generates internal heat.
well the external temperature of Europa is about 100K (-173C or so) or so, well below freezing, but the tidal interaction between Europa, Ganymede, Io, and jupiter cause such pressure stresses that it raises the internal temperature (enough so that Europa has the south pole water vapor plumes that we recently discovered).
Its plausible that this kind of effect can occur in Titan as well, although i dont know for sure if its expected
It is the number of comments on the story. It is not showing up for me now but it did yesterday. Strange...
I hope I live long enough to see them get a probe through the ice into the water of either Europa or Titan. It would be SO cool to see some form of alien life living there. At 44, I figure they better get moving, I got about 40 years...
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
For residents of the moon, that would be "molten ice".
For scientists - in fact, *rocket* scientists - they seem to have a strange definition for the word "ocean".
So? Astrophysicists apparently call anything heavier than helium a 'metal'. Terms of the art, you know?
Anyway, an ocean is merely a large body of water so you get a -1 Overrated. Have a Nice Day.
new data showed that many of the planet's surface features were in the wrong place, sometimes off by as much as 30 kilometers (19 miles).
I find it hard to take seriously any "scientific" paper which refers to Titan as a planet rather than a moon.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
So, when will the Lazarus and Klamp-G families start colonizing the place? I want my Tiger Moth!
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Then it stands to reason that frozen samples of it may be freely orbiting in the Jupiter system having been smashed into orbit by impacts on Europa's surface. It'd be interesting to know if any mission planners are considering this when thinking about future missions like EJSM. Russia is thinking of sending a lander with the EJSM so maybe samples could be found on the surface. I guess a sample/return mission is well out of feasibility for the foreseeable future sadly. I personally think Europa is potentially the most interesting body in the solar system at present from an exobiology point of view.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
They better welcome there new human overlords.
First broken fortunes and now this... what is going on with Slashdot?
As I recall, Titan also has amino acids.
Shit just got real, yo.
The hypothesis that Titan may have liquids present has been around for a long time. And it used the orbit shape since its basis from the very beginning. That is why Huygens atmospheric probe was designed to float just in case.
However Huygens landed on a solid surface even though it was aimed at an area that had an appearance of a liquid. As far as I know the probe did not detect any evidence of liquids near the landing site nor from the aerial imagery. As such, I was under the impression that this hypothesis was disproved.
If there were underground bodies of water present, surely Huygens would of picked up evidence of this in the atmosphere. Just seems like rather than working on other explanations for the orbit scientists still cling to the same assumptions with a little more justification.
I thought the Earth's moon always presented the same face toward the sun. Am I totally misunderstanding what this means?
The AntiJoey
You don't need to heat it up (although it helps). Water ice is an unusual solid in that it turns to a liquid under pressure, this is due to the fact that ice is less dense that liquid water. Therfore once you go deep enough under the surface any water found there must be in either liquid or gaseous form. This puts a physical upper limit on how deep the ice crust can be on Europa, allthough I have no idea what that limit is.
The really intriging thing about Europa's tidal heating is that it is strong enough to induce undersea volcanic plumes, which is where many people think life first arose on Earth.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The cold is not a deal breaker. Remember how pressure impacts boiling/freezing points from high school chemistry? Consider the sub-glacial lakes of Antarctica, for instance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Vostok
Lake Vostok is liquid at a temperature well below freezing simply because of the pressure of the ice above it. As long as it remains under pressure, the freezing point is significantly lowered.
so yes they do have water there. However they hate taking baths, which indicates the water could be of poor quality.
-179 C is the surface temperature. As on Earth temperature rises with depth because heat is generated inside, by radioactivity in Earth, and mainly by Saturn tidal friction in Titan. If the core tempeature is much higher than 100 C then there is necessarily a depth range at which the temperature is between the fusion and boiling temperature of water, which means liquid water can exist. In the quoted news article it is not explained why only water and not other molecules would provides the liquid conditions. I presume water is a learned guess from what is known in other bodies of the solar system.
Whats he chance of having life here or on Europa?
Time to get Titan on a collision course towards Venus!