bejohnson
03-18-2004, 02:40 PM
Saturn moon 'like Canada' (http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=6&id=185342004)
JOHN INNES
A PROBE due to land on Saturn’s moon Titan could discover a world that looks "a little bit like Sweden or northern Canada", one of the US mission’s scientists said.
The Cassini spacecraft is due to reach Saturn in July after a journey lasting seven years.
On 14 January next year, the American orbiter will send a European lander parachuting down to the surface of Saturn’s largest moon - one of the most mysterious bodies in the solar system.
No-one knows for certain what the probe - called Huygens - will find as it drops through Titan’s smoggy methane and nitrogen atmosphere which is four times thicker than that of the Earth. But scientists have found new clues, using the Earth’s biggest radio telescope as a giant radar to bounce signals off the moon’s surface.
Images from the 300m-wide Arecibo dish in Puerto Rico indicate the presence of seas and lakes - but not of water. These would be seas of ethane and methane liquefied by Titan’s frigid surface temperature of -179C.
If Huygens lands in such a lake of liquid lighter fuel it will float on the surface, taking photos and collecting data. Scientists hope the probe would also survive an impact on soft ground or snow, but landing on a hard or rocky surface would destroy it.
Dr Ralph Lorenz, a mission scientist based at the University of Arizona in Tucson, yesterday described what he expected Huygens to encounter.
Despite the Saturn moon being such an alien world, its physical appearance was likely to be similar to parts of the Earth, he said.
He told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Seattle: "I think we’ll see a rugged, but muted landscape. I think we’ll see a lot of impact craters.
"Impact cratering occurs everywhere in the solar system and on Titan, being a fairly sluggish environment, erosion is fairly slow. A lot of these will be filled with liquid to form circular lakes, rim-shaped lakes, bullseye lakes and horseshoe lakes. So I think we’ll see something maybe a bit like Sweden or northern Canada."
What if they find beer bottles and snowmobile tracks.:jawsdown
JOHN INNES
A PROBE due to land on Saturn’s moon Titan could discover a world that looks "a little bit like Sweden or northern Canada", one of the US mission’s scientists said.
The Cassini spacecraft is due to reach Saturn in July after a journey lasting seven years.
On 14 January next year, the American orbiter will send a European lander parachuting down to the surface of Saturn’s largest moon - one of the most mysterious bodies in the solar system.
No-one knows for certain what the probe - called Huygens - will find as it drops through Titan’s smoggy methane and nitrogen atmosphere which is four times thicker than that of the Earth. But scientists have found new clues, using the Earth’s biggest radio telescope as a giant radar to bounce signals off the moon’s surface.
Images from the 300m-wide Arecibo dish in Puerto Rico indicate the presence of seas and lakes - but not of water. These would be seas of ethane and methane liquefied by Titan’s frigid surface temperature of -179C.
If Huygens lands in such a lake of liquid lighter fuel it will float on the surface, taking photos and collecting data. Scientists hope the probe would also survive an impact on soft ground or snow, but landing on a hard or rocky surface would destroy it.
Dr Ralph Lorenz, a mission scientist based at the University of Arizona in Tucson, yesterday described what he expected Huygens to encounter.
Despite the Saturn moon being such an alien world, its physical appearance was likely to be similar to parts of the Earth, he said.
He told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Seattle: "I think we’ll see a rugged, but muted landscape. I think we’ll see a lot of impact craters.
"Impact cratering occurs everywhere in the solar system and on Titan, being a fairly sluggish environment, erosion is fairly slow. A lot of these will be filled with liquid to form circular lakes, rim-shaped lakes, bullseye lakes and horseshoe lakes. So I think we’ll see something maybe a bit like Sweden or northern Canada."
What if they find beer bottles and snowmobile tracks.:jawsdown