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Cassini Discovers First River On Another World
AbsoluteXyro writes "NASA's Cassini orbiter, which has been dutifully exploring the Saturn system since 2004, has captured images of the first river ever observed on another world — and it's a biggun. 200 miles of flowing hydrocarbons meandering down a valley in the north polar region of Saturn's moon Titan, emptying into the awesomely named Kraken Mare — itself a body of liquid roughly the size of the Mediterranean Sea back on Earth. But don't think of going for an extraterrestrial skinny dip quite yet, temperatures on Titan average a brutally cold 290 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit)."
No bombing.
Diving permitted at deep end only.
NO SMOKING.
The white spots on the river banks look like population hot-spots on earth.
Let the conspiracy theorists begin making up stuff.
Surely they will claim something about extra-terrestrial cities and FBI secrets.
~ Best man at your service.
I get that no one on Slashdot RTFA, but this time even the description says "200 miles of flowing hydrocarbons."
Next up on Fox News - Terrorists on Saturn's moon are out to destroy America! Support out troops! Praise the lord and pass the ammunition!
Two factors:
It's hydrocarbons, not water.
Titan's surface pressure is 1.5 bars, 50% higher than Earth.
I don't get how this is new. Cassini has been detecting branching river systems and large lakes (Great Lakes size) filled with liquid methane since early in the mission. This latest release is adding to the mapped area, but isn't particularly new in that regard. However, if you read the original NASA press release on the Cassini web site, it makes more sense. This is not the first, but the longest river system that has been observed so far on Titan, at about 400km long.
This is one of the few times that I'd rather see the temperature in the Rankine scale over Fahrenheit!
Essentially, they had 4 systems to choose from (Kelvin would be ideal), and they picked the very worst choice!
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Hmm, hydrocarbons and not a plant in sight? I'm thinking we might want to stop calling oil and natural gas fossil fuels.
It's only -179 C. Not exactly shorts weather, mind you.
So, instead of reading the article, you decided to search wikipedia instead? That's so messed up....
... are you stupid? Of course they use proper units.
This is a press release intended for the general public.
You'd think so, but tell that to the Mars Climate Orbiter which was expecting SI units but instead was given horses per submarine per twatwaffle or some other such ancient unit and took a steep dive into the atmosphere and burned up.
I'm quite ignorant of organic chemistry, but I thought hydrocarbons were fossils. How can there be hydrocarbons without life?
Or am I WAY off in my ASSumptions?
There are plenty of organic molecules out in space. All organic means is "contains carbon".
Organic compounds form anywhere there is carbon, which is made in stars and spread around by supernovae. Given that hydrogen makes up 99.8% of the stuff out there most of the carbon compounds you find in space are simple hydrocarbons, either aliphatic stuff like methane and ethane or aromatics like naphthalene and other poly-aromatic systems.
I'm quite ignorant of organic chemistry, but I thought hydrocarbons were fossils. How can there be hydrocarbons without life?
Or am I WAY off in my ASSumptions?
Organic chemistry is a misnomer. Most of the hydrocarbon molecules formed in the universe have been created without life. Just a byproduct of carbon, oxygen (mostly as Carbon Monoxide), hydrogen and a few other random chemicals along with a bit of fusion and a lot of time.
It would still burn OK (if there was any oxygen around). You could still make hydrogen and power fusion reactions (if we knew how). Lots of potential energy in the universe, more than we could ever use. Just hard to get to.
If you think drilling on the northern end of Siberia is hard, try a Jovian moon. Makes for nice science fiction reading, but as far as it being an instructional video, we have a ways to go.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I can start planning my black water rafting trip.
River of hydrocarbons and no one is blaming BP for the spill?
Bzzt. Kelvin is an SI unit.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Essentially, they had 4 systems to choose from (Kelvin would be ideal), and they picked the very worst choice!
Not to mention Kelvin is SI base unit. Kinda the norm when you are talking about scientific news to a bunch of nerds. Remember the whole "News for nerds, stuff that matters" motto? Or did the spirit of that die when CmdrTaco left?
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
More combustible fuel than all the Middle East combined! Good thing we didn't elect Romney, or we'd be drafted to fight for the liberation of Titan from whatever God-forsaken lifeform that would allow such a resource to be so underultilized.
Yes. An error made by the contractor, who used His Majesty's standard, while NASA specs all of their requirements in metric.
I couldn't even tell you how high the temperature is right now, as my thermometer is laying on its side. I can only give you its length.
Awesome science stuff happens, queue 300 posts of retards bitching about the unit of measurement a writer chose to use so the public he writes to can relate easier.
If you have an issue with the measurement don't bitch and moan, do the conversion and move on. That's what those of us raised on the imperial scales do when we see metric stuff posted (unless we were those fortunate to have grown up learning both)
But who needs to drill when there are seas of the stuff flowing right on the surface!
Looking at the image on the NASA page, it jumps out at you: it's a fractal. To quote Marathon 1, "They're eveywhere!"
-- haaz.
It'll be hard to pry away from us, too. There's more integers between 32 and 212 than between 0 and 100. So if you don't use decimal points, Fahrenheit is of a higher precision. Even still, when you're talking about temperatures never seen on earth, Kelvin or Celsius still make far more sense.
No no, c'mon, don't be rude, he meant Kelvins, the rather underused temperature scale of lower Kyrgyzstan, first coined in 1552 by scientist and British transpat Sir Howie Rudestash Kelvins. 0 degrees Kelvins is defined as the freezing point of that congestion you get from too many fish and chips cooked in tallow, and 100 degrees is defined as the point where spotted dick catches fire.
Really, this should be well known. Personally, I blame public schools.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
No - just that we prefer integers. It doesn't take much inertia to prevent a switchover. As the world can see.
In the Celsius world, people also have an intuitive feeling for the temperature ;D
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Yes, 'the metric system' is generally used in North America to indicate the SI system, in contrast to traditional units (imperial in Canada, customary in US.) Drawing a distinction between the core metric units and the other SI extensions would be an unnecessary level of hair-splitting; we'd call those... I dunno, metric spacetime units, but that's definitely not a distinction people need to draw often, so the meaning disappears due to conservation of Huffman coding space.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
0C is the freezing temperature of fresh water, which is far more relevant a point than anything to do with seawater (and Fahrenheit didn't use real seawater anyway, it was ammonium chloride). 0C is the point your drinking water freezes, which is a lot more relevant to most humans. If immersed in freezing seawater or freezing freshwater you'll be dead before you have much time to think about the difference in human perception between 0F and 0C. They're both deadly without special protection. 10C is cool but easy to handle with a light coat, 20C is comfortable room temperature. Anything over 30C is freaking hot. Divide between those points accordingly. 100C is the temperature of boiling water (at STP) that you shouldn't be sticking your hands into.
I don't buy the "human experience" aspect at all for the silliness that is Fahrenheit. The freezing point of fresh water is THE most important point on a temperature scale relating to human effects, and Celsius puts that at a logical 0 rather than weird 32. I always thought it was dumb that you had to do a bit of albeit simple math to figure out how many degrees you were above or below the freezing point using the Fahrenheit scale. With Celsius, it's the + or -. Much simpler.
It's just what you're used to, and I see no downside to Celsius at all. Furthermore, Celsius degrees are a little bigger than Fahrenheit degrees. Less precise, you say? Human perception can't reliably tell the difference between 1 degree F anyway, and struggles to consistently perceive Celsius degrees (I can usually estimate +-2 or 3 Celsius at best).
At -179C, it doesn't really matter if it is in F or C. It's far outside normal human experience unless you have a habit of dipping body parts in liquified gases.
No - just that we prefer integers.
Except when you can use fractions - 3/8 inch for instance.
"For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert"
How is Celsius worse than Fahrenheit in this situation?
I imagine it would be because Celsius is harder to determine due to the wooshing sound going on.
You do realize that there are quite a few integers between 10 and 20, and between 20 and 30, that serve the same distinguishing purpose as your precise splitting into 40-50-60-70-80-90, don't you?
Yeah, but my parent (any many americans repeat that claim all the time about temperature and lengths) was of the opinion that Fahrenheit is particular well suited to develop an intuitive feeling for temperature (or in case of feet and inches for distances). My point is, you always develop an intuitive feeling for the typical units used in your society. That is something humans are good at ;D Does not matter if it is a foot or chakku or meter.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
200 miles of flowing hydrocarbons meandering down a valley in the north polar region of Saturn's moon Titan, emptying into the awesomely named Kraken Mare â" itself a body of liquid roughly the size of the Mediterranean Sea back on Earth.
Wouldn't that be a sight. I'd love to watch a high definition video of this river. Imax!
You must gather your party before venturing forth.
Are you sure that wasn't Kalvin and Hobbes. That kid can think up some whacky stuff!
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
I've ruler I've ever owned does exactly that.
Having a home with poor air circulation and a thermostat which runs warm as a consequence, I have to disagree: in the winter, a few degrees Fahrenheit in the 66-72 range are definitely noticeable.
Oddly enough Celsius is indeed better for this use. 1* Celsius is approximately the amount of difference in temperature it takes for the human body to say "hey the temperature changed"