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.
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.
Oh no, not hydrocarbons!!!!! Global warming has even started to ruin the weather on Saturn & Mars!!!
I think it's quite obvious that this means the dinosaurs were successful in starting their own space program and colonized Titan eons ago.
Titan is a heckuva neat place, and just keeps getting more interesting.
Thanks for the ping :)
You may be thinking of (the late) Thomas Gold, one of the bright spots of the 20th century. :')
It's to "rich" to burn.
That would be 'too' rich to burn.
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. . .
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.
That two.
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.
Oh great! The whole friggin moon is a NO SMOKING area!
Durn nanny-staters!
If Oil came from Dinosaurs how did they get stuck in it?
Who says were going to run out of oil?
Titan year 2088?
some nice Tarpit Photos
http://www.beans-around-the-world.com/labrea.html
Thanks for the ping!
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.
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... 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 didnt have dinosaurs and ferns on Jupiter to produce oil and gas?"
Some info about Gold:
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.
Where's the dinosaurs?
Are the Titanians Muslim?
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