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Cassini finds evidence of giant hydrocarbon lakes on moon Titan
AP - Bakersfield Californian ^ | 7/24/06 | Alicia Chang - ap

Posted on 07/24/2006 6:56:41 PM PDT by NormsRevenge

Scientists said Monday they have found the first widespread evidence of giant hydrocarbon lakes on the surface of Saturn's planet-size moon Titan.

The cluster of hydrocarbon lakes was spotted near Titan's frigid north pole during a weekend flyby by the international Cassini spacecraft, which flew within 590 miles of the moon.

Researchers counted about a dozen lakes ranging from 6 miles to 62 miles wide. Some lakes, which appeared as dark patches in radar images, were connected by channels while others had tributaries flowing into them. Several were dried up, but the ones that contained liquid were most likely a mix of methane and ethane.

"It was a real potpourri," said Cassini scientist Jonathan Lunine of the University of Arizona.

Titan is one of two moons in the solar system known to possess a significant atmosphere similar to primordial Earth. But scientists have long puzzled over the source of its hazy atmosphere rich in nitrogen and methane.

Scientists believe methane gas breaks up in Titan's atmosphere and forms smog clouds that then rain methane down to the surface. But the source of methane inside the moon, which is releasing the gas into the atmosphere is still unknown, Lunine said.

Last year, Cassini found what appeared to be a liquid hydrocarbon lake about the size of Lake Ontario on Titan's south pole. But the recent flyby marked the first time the spacecraft spied a multitude of lakes.

Cassini's next Titan encounter will be Sept. 7 when it will be 620 miles away.

Cassini, funded by NASA and the European and Italian space agencies, was launched in 1997 and took seven years to reach Saturn to explore the ringed planet and its numerous moons. The mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

Cassini's accompanying probe, Huygens, developed and controlled by the ESA, touched down on Titan in 2005.


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: cassini; crevolist; evidence; finds; giant; huygens; hydrocarbon; immanuelvelikovsky; lakes; methane; moon; saturn; titan; velikovsky; worldsincollision
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To: NormsRevenge
Seems to me there was an intrepid original-thinking scientist by the name of Goldschmidt about 20 years ago who theorized that much of the earth's hydrocarbons are of non-organic origin, cosmic flotsam and jetsam left over from the early accretion of the solar system.

The self-appointed high priests and keepers of the pure faith of science laughed him to scorn, ridiculed him, and essentially excommunicated him for thinking such an unacceptable thing.

And so it continues today.

41 posted on 07/24/2006 8:15:19 PM PDT by JCEccles
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To: NormsRevenge

Oh no, not hydrocarbons!!!!! Global warming has even started to ruin the weather on Saturn & Mars!!!


42 posted on 07/24/2006 8:15:30 PM PDT by bpjam (Remember our fallen Marines from Beirut. Hezbollah deserves no peace.)
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To: NormsRevenge

I think it's quite obvious that this means the dinosaurs were successful in starting their own space program and colonized Titan eons ago.


43 posted on 07/24/2006 8:26:23 PM PDT by VeniVidiVici (Rabid ethnicist.)
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To: SunkenCiv

Titan is a heckuva neat place, and just keeps getting more interesting.

Thanks for the ping :)


44 posted on 07/24/2006 8:27:11 PM PDT by annie laurie (All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost)
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To: JCEccles

You may be thinking of (the late) Thomas Gold, one of the bright spots of the 20th century. :')


45 posted on 07/24/2006 8:29:59 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (updated my FR profile on Wednesday, June 21, 2006. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: ASA Vet

It's to "rich" to burn.

That would be 'too' rich to burn.


46 posted on 07/24/2006 8:32:43 PM PDT by maxsand
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To: NormsRevenge

That would be one heckuva mission.. maybe a stopoff at Mars and then onto Titan

maybe a stopoff at Mars, then Joe's Ice House and then onto Titan. . .


47 posted on 07/24/2006 8:38:23 PM PDT by maxsand
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To: NormsRevenge

This news sent gasoline futures soaring, much to the puzzlement of industry analysts, who say that the discovery of vast quantities of extraterrestrial fuelstuffs should have driven prices downward. A spokesman for Exxon Mobil blamed the price spike on a refinery snafu in Botswana, despite the fact that Botswana produces less oil than Carlos Mencia's forehead.


48 posted on 07/24/2006 8:46:00 PM PDT by IronJack
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To: maxsand

That two.


49 posted on 07/24/2006 8:52:19 PM PDT by ASA Vet (3.03)
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To: driftdiver
OK so we've been taught that hydrocarbons are the results of plant matter in the pre-historic swamps

You've had some pretty bad teachers.

Petroleum, a particularly complex hydrocarbon and more complex than the ones on Titan, is formed from dead oceanic and large lake plankton. Has nothing to do with swamps at all.

50 posted on 07/24/2006 9:01:56 PM PDT by Strategerist
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To: 6SJ7; SheLion
Please extinguish all smoking materials before disembarking onto the surface of Titan.

Oh great! The whole friggin moon is a NO SMOKING area!

Durn nanny-staters!

51 posted on 07/24/2006 9:03:07 PM PDT by uglybiker (Don't blame me. I didn't make you stupid.)
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To: NormsRevenge
Giant hydrocarbon lakes Hmm

The La Brea Tarpits

If Oil came from Dinosaurs how did they get stuck in it?

Who says we’re going to run out of oil?
Titan year 2088?


52 posted on 07/24/2006 9:26:58 PM PDT by quietolong
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To: quietolong

some nice Tarpit Photos
http://www.beans-around-the-world.com/labrea.html


53 posted on 07/24/2006 9:30:17 PM PDT by quietolong
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To: PatrickHenry

Thanks for the ping!


54 posted on 07/24/2006 9:49:32 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: NormsRevenge

So hydrocarbons are not a "fossil fuel."

A lot of us have known this for years.

"Empty" wells in the Gulf of Mexico are filling themselves.

It is easy to take smaller hydrocarbons, and create bigger hydrocarbons. We've been doing this for many years.

Guys in labs routinely create oils from methane.

We will never run out of hydrocarbons, ever, IMHO.


55 posted on 07/25/2006 4:30:02 AM PDT by MonroeDNA (Look for the Union label--on the tunnel ceiling as it smashes your car!)
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To: JCEccles
Seems to me there was an intrepid original-thinking scientist by the name of Goldschmidt about 20 years ago...

As someone noted here, it was Thomas Gold. And he was - and is still being - laughed at by the "fossil" fuel advocates. Just like global warming, anyyone who comes up with a theory or information that opposes the "accepted" (viz., grant producing) dogma, they are personally ridiculed and attacked. Not the theory or data, but the person personally. Yup, really open minds there...
Some info about Gold:

One of the world's leading advocates for the theory that hydrocarbons are renewable is Dr. Thomas Gold who contends that oil is not a limited resource, and that oil, natural gas and coal, are not so-called “fossil fuels.”

In his book, The Deep Hot Biosphere: The Myth of Fossil Fuels, he explains that dinosaurs and plants and the fossils from those living beings are not the origin of oil and natural gas, but rather generated from a chemical substance in the crust of the Earth.

Dr. Gold: "Astronomers have been able to find that hydrocarbons, as oil, gas and coal are called, occur on many other planetary bodies. They are a common substance in the universe. You find it in the kind of gas clouds that made systems like our solar system. You find large quantities of hydrocarbons in them. Is it reasonable to think that our little Earth, one of the planets, contains oil and gas for reasons that are all its own and that these other bodies have it because it was built into them when they were born? That question makes a lot of sense. After all, they didn’t have dinosaurs and ferns on Jupiter to produce oil and gas?"

If hydrocarbons are renewable- then is "Peak Oil" a fraud?

56 posted on 07/25/2006 10:00:31 AM PDT by hadit2here ("Most men would rather die than think. Many do." - Bertrand Russell)
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To: driftdiver

It's doubtful. Even if oil does come from some nonorganic source, that still doesn't mean it is necessarily renewable on a time frame that would be at all useful for us--most likely not. After all, oil is renewable, just bury a lot of organic material very deep and wait a long long time.


57 posted on 07/25/2006 10:37:54 AM PDT by ahayes ("If intelligent design evolved from creationism, then why are there still creationists?"--Quark2005)
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To: NormsRevenge

Where's the dinosaurs?


58 posted on 07/25/2006 1:00:45 PM PDT by TexasRepublic (Afghan protest - "Death to Dog Washers!")
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To: NormsRevenge

Are the Titanians Muslim?


59 posted on 07/25/2006 1:20:03 PM PDT by Jim Noble (I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit - it's the only way to be sure.)
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To: Jim Noble
Are the Titanians Muslim?

If not, they will be or they will DIE!
60 posted on 07/25/2006 1:29:02 PM PDT by jrg
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