European Craft on Saturn Moon Finds Tantalizing Signs of Liquid

NY Times ^ | January 15, 2005 | JOHN NOBLE WILFORD

[neverdem]

ESA/NASA
European space officials today displayed the first pictures of the surface of Saturn's largest moon.

ESA/NASA
This image of Titan was taken from an altitude of 16.2 kilometers with a resolution of approximately 40 meters per pixel.

[dc-zoo]

Yes.. liquid methane. Just hope it can't send back the smell.

[nuke rocketeer]

Mercaptans make the smell. Methane is odorless.

[neverdem]

ping

[ProudVet77]

"not likely to be repeated in the lifetime of anyone alive today - so this is a really historic event."

Either this guy knows something about the end of the world or he is not too optimistic about the future of space exploration.
But this is still an historic event, just because it was the first time.

[Zuben Elgenubi]

this is very cool stuff. I'm absolutely taken aback at the quality of the digital images.

You know if a hot object (like a spaceship in inverted rocket landing blast) landed on pure methane, the heat from the vehicle would melt the methane and the vehicle would then become immersed in the liquid methane until it refroze, trapping everyone within.

Tough for humans to land on any planet or moon after Mars.

[js1138]

These are pretty good for one-hour photo processing, but I would dearly like to see something besides rocks. Maybe they are snowballs.

[neverdem]

Mercaptans

[neverdem]

FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.

[Zuben Elgenubi]

Of course I could put you on my thermodynamics ping list if you wish.

[Batrachian]

The surface that Huygens is resting on is rock, not frozen methane. I say it's Titan Rover time, in spite of what that Euroweenie says.

[Texas Eagle]

Oh, great. Here we go. The Space Cadets will start lobbying for trillions of taxpayer dollars to explore Saturn's moon.

[Congressman Billybob]

I thought methane was a biologic product. I read somewhere that indications of methane in Earth's atmosphere's signature would tell any aliens who visited, thousands or millions of years ago, that there was life on Earth. And the source of that would be termite flatulence, since they were one of the earliest widely prevalent life forms.

Did I miss remember all that?

Congressman Billybob

Click for latest, "Social Security, AARP and Coots"

[waynebobo]

Real Pictures

[js1138]

Organic in the sense of being a hydrocarbon, but not biologic. You will hear people talking about pre-biological chemistry, but that's another thread.

[Central Scrutiniser]

I like the direction past the mars rover, I've seen research on dragonfly like drones that can fly around mars, observing and reporting back.

Way cool.

[PoorMuttly]

Sounds like interesting stuff. Of course, it being goo is neat too.

This seems like a great power source for my.....uh.......our experiments, and serious scientific installations.

Shaggy eel and I will take care of the boomtown entertainment. Trust us.



Now going back to traveling in silence to conserve battery power.

[Grut]

Did I miss remember all that?

Free oxygen shows the presence of life; oxygen is so active that it soon combines with other elements and disappears from the atmosphere unless it's constantly being renewed by further biological activity. Methane I'm not sure about but I think it's just a garden variety chemical.

[TexasCowboy]

"Methane is odorless."

Not entirely.

[not-a-neocon]

"so this is a really historic event."

Indeed it is.

This is the most important historical event of humanity to date, and possible of the 21st century.

An accomplishment of gigantic significance.