Posted on 11/06/2014 6:21:33 PM PST by lbryce
New images from NASA have captured the beautiful golden reflection of the sun on the polar sea of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. It is the latest image from a collaborative four year mission studying the Saturnine system.
The mirror-like reflection, known as the specular point, is in the south of Titan's largest sea, Kraken Mare – just north of an island archipelago separating two separate parts of the sea. To the human eye, this would appear as a haze but through Cassini’s Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS), “real color information” is provided in wavelengths that correspond to atmospheric windows, making the moon’s surface visible.
"The highest resolution data from this flyby — the area seen immediately to the right of the sunlight — cover the labyrinth of channels that connect Kraken Mare to another large sea, Ligeia Mare. Ligeia Mare itself is partially covered in its northern reaches by a bright, arrow-shaped complex of clouds. The clouds are made of liquid methane droplets, and could be actively refilling the lakes with rainfall," stated NASA.
Titan is the only other body in the solar system known to have a liquid surface like Earth. Instead of water, the lakes and seas are made up of hydrocarbons, organic compounds that also rain down from the clouds that cover the moon. For this reason, scientists think that because Earth and Titan share so much in atmospheric composition, the Saturn’s moon might hold clues as to how the primitive Earth evolved into a life-bearing planet.
(Excerpt) Read more at rt.com ...
You may not remember me but I think you might want to see this article.
I stand in awe at God's creation.
/johnny
I understand the Blue and Red, Are the Green areas the RINO’s and Libertarians?
It’s just AMAZING to me how they can so precisely plan all of those ‘gravity assist’ maneuvers around the planets over such distances over a period of years, and hit their target at the end of it.
“The Sirens of Titan” by Kilgore Trout.
/johnny
It’s like hitting red pubic hair at 100 feet with a bb gun...
Yeah. The Juno craft went out past the orbit of mars before falling back toward the sun to meet the earth at just the right place for a gravity assist on its way to Jupiter.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/main/index.html#.VFwwJMlIScs
Isn't that obvious? Why do so many people feel the need to say so on nearly every posting that has to do with outer space? No one says such things when there are images of things on Earth. Why is it always outer space? It almost makes me wonder if there's something people feel like they need to explain, or a feel insecure about.
Surely you aren't in doubt of the existence of God, are you?
lol!!
I’ve done it with a .22, but I wouldn’t try it with a BB gun... :)
/johnny
We’re looking at . . . green cheese?
I’m sure. I often say the same things myself lately. (I was kind of being a smart ass too - and I apologize for that)
I just find it interesting how people always seem to say such things on ‘space’ threads, and not so much; if there was a thread showing the Grand Canyon, for example.(I’d LOVE to go there sometime)
Cool!
The Grand Canyon is beyond words when you see it in person. It's worth the trip.
/johnny
Actually they’re called fire opals or triplets. They’re beautiful.
That’s why God made math wonks.
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