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Craters Quickly Hidden On Titan
MightyMartian writes "NASA scientists say Cassini has discovered that far fewer craters are visible on Titan than on the other moons of Saturn. The craters they have discovered are far shallower than other moons' craters and appear to be filling with hydrocarbon sand. On top of being another reason Titan's active geology is very cool, it adds to the mystery of where all the methane on Titan is coming from. 'The rain that falls from Titan's skies is not water, but contains liquid methane and ethane, compounds that are gases at Earth's temperatures. ... The source of Titan's methane remains a mystery because methane in the atmosphere is broken down over relatively short time scales by sunlight. Fragments of methane molecules then recombine into more complex hydrocarbons in the upper atmosphere, forming a thick, orange smog that hides the surface from view. Some of the larger particles eventually rain out onto the surface, where they appear to get bound together to form the sand.'"
The source of Titan's methane remains a mystery because methane in the atmosphere is broken down over relatively short time scales by sunlight
Hang on a minute: wasn't free methane being used as an indicator of life on Mars? So where does this methane come from?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Maybe the source of the methane is some exotic life form: They feed on the more complex hydrocarbons and reduce them to methane (I'm no chemist, so I don't really know whether this would be a possible way to gain energy). They cannot consume the methane to gain more energy because they are lacking oxygen, therefore the methane is the end product, just like CO2 for earth's life. The methane then goes into the atmosphere where it gets combined into more complex hydrocarbons using solar energy (that process is actually described in the article).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/056/e/e/space_cows_by_jessicabane501-d4qxz3i.jpg
You just can't trust those cows. I mean, cows have people trained in India to starve before they will consider eating a cow. Cows are smarter than we give them credit for.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
The source of Titan's methane remains a mystery because methane in the atmosphere is broken down over relatively short time scales by sunlight
Hang on a minute: wasn't free methane being used as an indicator of life on Mars? So where does this methane come from?
Kind of. Methane could be generated on Mars either by biological means, or by geological means.
If its geological, then the sub-surface of Mars is more active than we thought.
If its biological in origin, well there's the biggest discovery in human history right there.
For the record, im guessing geological.
Wouldn't Titan's ultra-dense atmosphere have something to do with this? Most meteors come in at a high angle of incidence, meaning they graze the atmosphere, then fall in as they're slowed down to a capture speed.
Titan's atmosphere is something like what, three times as dense as Earth's atmosphere? It's up there with Venus, not Mars or Io, so shouldn't we be comparing it to planets, not moons? Keep in mind that visually, Titan is only about 8% smaller than Mars, and quite a bit larger than Earth's moon.
moox. for a new generation.
Too bad this isn't on Europa, *and* there isn't a single black monoliths in sight, *and* Jupiter (well, Saturn, Jupiter is nowhere in sight either) isn't collapsing in on itself and isn't turning into a second sun, *and* there isn't a human crewed spacecraft there, *and* we're not receiving an ominous warning not to land there, *and* neither a psychotic computer nor Roy Scheider are involved, or you would be able to make a 2001/2010 reference.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
stays mainly in the crater.
But you could make a Kurt Vonnegut one :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirens_of_titan
Well worth a read by the way
Actually the Bhagavad Gita allows an exception to killing in the face of starvation. A human being can sustain themselves without killing. Because life is sacred (crazy thought), an enlightened person should choose not to kill over killing. Because cows make milk and many dishes can be made from milk without killing, and mother's produce milk, cows are considered sacred. However, if you are faced with starvation, self-preservation is allowed. As religion goes, it's not quite as crazy as a god that depends on us killing Him so He can forgive us for our sins and save us from Himself.
Have gnu, will travel.
On Mars, it is expected that methane would be destroyed pretty quickly due to photochemistry, and in order for th current, low concentrations to maintain a steady state, there has to be a source somewhere. Titan would be a difference case, as it receives less sun light, may have started with a much larger source of methane. It wouldn't take as large of an ongoing source of methane to result in the levels we see on Titan, as opposed on Mars.