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Friday, October 29, 2004
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NASA Scientists Find Surface of Titan 'Very Alien'
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The surface of Saturn's moon Titan may be covered by thick drifts of combustible organic "snow" floating on lakes of liquid methane or water and ammonia ice flows, NASA (news - web sites) scientists said on Friday.
Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California have been poring over new radar and infrared images of Titan taken this week by the Cassini spacecraft in the closest fly-by ever of the smog-covered moon.
"The surface could be very flammable," scientist Toby Owen said at a Friday briefing. "We can imagine flammable swamps on Titan with liquid methane and flammable aerosols."
The $3-billion mission, a joint project with the European and Italian space agencies, was designed, in part, to unlock the origin of life by studying the celestial body scientists believe most resembled Earth 4.6 billion years ago.
The slice of terrain captured by Cassini's instruments in Tuesday's fly-by showed sharply contrasting bright and dark areas with sharp and grooved features that scientists believe may be "wrinkle ridges," where the moon's thin plates collided.
The Cassini team was excited by a dark formation nicknamed "The Halloween Cat" that appears to be one of the lakes of methane or ethane they believe must exist on Titan to explain the high concentration of those gases in the atmosphere.
The team also was surprised by the apparent absence of volcanic craters or vents they predicted would replenish methane that appears to be escaping from the atmosphere.
"It has to come out of the interior," Owen said. "Somewhere in these mysterious radar images we're looking at has to be a way for this methane to come out."
The data also seems to show that Titan could be covered in up to 656 feet of fluffy hydrocarbon "snow" that fell out of the heavy atmosphere. It is still not clear how much of the surface is liquid and how much is solid and whether the "land masses" are ice, scientists said.
"We are beginning to see a few things we recognize, but most of what we see is very alien," geophycist Laurence Soderblom said.
Cassini is set to collect more images of Titan in its Dec. 13 fly-by, one of 45 passes planned for the four-year mission. On Christmas Eve, Cassini will release the Huygens probe its carries for a 20-day data-gathering trip to Titan's surface.
1 comment:
NASA Scientists Find Surface of Titan 'Very Alien'
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The surface of Saturn's moon Titan may be covered by thick drifts of combustible organic "snow" floating on lakes of liquid methane or water and ammonia ice flows, NASA (news - web sites) scientists said on Friday.
Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California have been poring over new radar and infrared images of Titan taken this week by the Cassini spacecraft in the closest fly-by ever of the smog-covered moon.
"The surface could be very flammable," scientist Toby Owen said at a Friday briefing. "We can imagine flammable swamps on Titan with liquid methane and flammable aerosols."
The $3-billion mission, a joint project with the European and Italian space agencies, was designed, in part, to unlock the origin of life by studying the celestial body scientists believe most resembled Earth 4.6 billion years ago.
The slice of terrain captured by Cassini's instruments in Tuesday's fly-by showed sharply contrasting bright and dark areas with sharp and grooved features that scientists believe may be "wrinkle ridges," where the moon's thin plates collided.
The Cassini team was excited by a dark formation nicknamed "The Halloween Cat" that appears to be one of the lakes of methane or ethane they believe must exist on Titan to explain the high concentration of those gases in the atmosphere.
The team also was surprised by the apparent absence of volcanic craters or vents they predicted would replenish methane that appears to be escaping from the atmosphere.
"It has to come out of the interior," Owen said. "Somewhere in these mysterious radar images we're looking at has to be a way for this methane to come out."
The data also seems to show that Titan could be covered in up to 656 feet of fluffy hydrocarbon "snow" that fell out of the heavy atmosphere. It is still not clear how much of the surface is liquid and how much is solid and whether the "land masses" are ice, scientists said.
"We are beginning to see a few things we recognize, but most of what we see is very alien," geophycist Laurence Soderblom said.
Cassini is set to collect more images of Titan in its Dec. 13 fly-by, one of 45 passes planned for the four-year mission. On Christmas Eve, Cassini will release the Huygens probe its carries for a 20-day data-gathering trip to Titan's surface.
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