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The Swirling Vortex of Titan

Posted by Soulskill on from the bring-a-life-jacket dept.

sighted writes "New images from the robotic spacecraft Cassini show the ongoing formation of a massive vortex in the atmosphere of Saturn's planet-sized moon Titan. (See also this animation.) The same moon has recently provided tantalizing hints of an underground ocean as well. Future missions, if any are ever funded, will have plenty to explore."

11 of 45 comments (clear)

  1. Titan is becoming a more amazing world by Stirling+Newberry · · Score: 2

    with each discovery. Would that space exploration were the priority, we could have robots swarming the solar system, including permanent orbiters around the gas giants and landers on the ice worlds.

    --
    Fugue for Aaron Swartz
    1. Re:Titan is becoming a more amazing world by bandy · · Score: 2, Funny

      Except Europa ... Attempt No Landings There.

      --
      "You might as well get your son a ticket to hell as give him a five string banjo." -unknown minister
    2. Re:Titan is becoming a more amazing world by Stirling+Newberry · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sadly 2010 didn't arrive by 2010, though 1984 is half way here.

      --
      Fugue for Aaron Swartz
    3. Re:Titan is becoming a more amazing world by bandy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Read and watch "2001: A Space Odyssey". (The book and the movie were developed simultaneously and you really need one to fully understand the other. I'd read the book first.) Then read "2010: Odyssey Two". Both written by Sir Arthur C. Clarke. Psychedelics optional where permitted by law, sitter who knows and loves the story highly advised.

      --
      "You might as well get your son a ticket to hell as give him a five string banjo." -unknown minister
  2. Mod offtopic by fiannaFailMan · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Please mod this entire fucking thread offtopic before it engulfs a potentially interesting discussion about Titan.

    --
    Drill baby drill - on Mars
  3. agreed by circletimessquare · · Score: 4, Interesting

    And my positive contribution to a serious thread:

    The dipole moment of water, the dipole moment of anything, ammonia for example, is necessary for life

    Because life has to have something to work with chemically, a way in, a way that can lead to more complex chemistry.a dipole moment supplies this way in and way up

    Therefore, I am voting against life on titan, as a bunch of hydrocarbons with no dipole moment offer no stepping stone to more advanced chemistry

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  4. I wish there were more comments by strikethree · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I wish there were more comments in stories like these. I always get a sense of child-like wonder when I see new things like this and I always find myself wondering how/why/what is going on. With the physics stories, we usually see some experts or at least some clued-in non-arrogant people having discussions that REALLY enlighten me. Stuff like this, not so much. It makes me feel kind of sad.

    I wish I knew more about this subject or at least enough to know where to go look. I will probably have to start with cloud formations and vortex mechanics and work my way out from there, but by the time I finally have a general idea, the wonder will be lost... but at least the information will still reside in my brain and I can apply it to Jupiter or somesuch. I am getting too old and the universe is too big for me to do original research on everything. That is the only reason I wish I could live forever. :)

    --
    "Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
    1. Re:I wish there were more comments by SternisheFan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I agree with you completely. Isn't it cool!? I'm 52 now, and as a kid, before the moon landing, many people then thought it quite possible that the lunar lander might sink into the 'green cheese' surface of the moon! I know that sounds crazy to anyone born after 1969 reading this, but that was people's thinking back then. We couldn't be sure what the moon was made of. We really didn't know! We've come so far since then in our knowledge of the universe, and every pic of anything we haven't done or seen before always makes me feel so awed. Awed, and grateful. Grateful for being alive in this amazing time of discovery we live in. And I wonder how far we'll eventually go.....

    2. Re:I wish there were more comments by qwidjib0 · · Score: 2

      Agreed, people suck. The fact that we've barely touched the tip of the iceberg in discovering things like this is something to genuinely be excited about. I can't say that about many things in today's society.

  5. TiME = Titan Mare Explorer by Darth+Snowshoe · · Score: 2

    NASA is due (this month?) to make a final selection between three competing Discovery-class proposals. Among them is the Titan Mare Explorer, the first attempt to put a boat on an extraterrestrial sea. How cool would that be? Good overviews of the proposal are here;

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Mare_Explorer
    http://futureplanets.blogspot.com/2011/08/time-and-updates.html

    A more detailed description is here;
    http://www.kiss.caltech.edu/workshops/titan2010/presentations/aharonson.pdf

    Disclosure: If the TiME mission is selected, I am hoping to work on it.

    1. Re:TiME = Titan Mare Explorer by Darth+Snowshoe · · Score: 2

      In fairness, a description of the other two competing Discovery proposals is here,

      http://futureplanets.blogspot.com/2012/05/and-discovery-nominees-are.html

      along with links to NASA quad charts for each, and to larger articles discussing each proposal in detail.