Tag Archives: Titan
The Hyperion dispute and chaos in space
I believe my blog’s subscribers did not receive email notifications of some recent posts. If you’re interested, I’ve listed the links to the last eight posts at the bottom of this edition. When reading around for my piece yesterday on … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm, Science
Tagged butterfly effect, classical chaos, decoherence, ensemble interpretation, Hyperion, Leslie Ballentine, Maximilian Schlosshauer, measurement problem, Nathan Wiebe, quantum chaos, Saturn, Titan, wavefunction, Wojciech Zurek
Comments Off on The Hyperion dispute and chaos in space
A mystery on Venus
Scientists have reported that they have found abnormal amounts of a toxic compound called phosphine in Venus’s atmosphere, at 55-80 km altitude. This story is currently all over my Twitter feed because one way to explain this unexpected abundance is … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged ALMA observatory, anaerobic microbes, phosphene, supercritical carbon dioxide, Titan, unknown unknowns, Venus
Comments Off on A mystery on Venus
A new map of Titan
It’s been a long time since I’ve obsessed over Titan, primarily because after the Cassini mission ended, the pace of updates about Titan died down, and because other moons of the Solar System (Europa, Io, Enceladus, Ganymede and our own) … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm, Science
Tagged Cassini mission, Chandrayaan 2, Chandrayaan 3, complex hydrocarbons, Enceladus, Europa, Ganymede, geomorphology, global map, habitability, hydrocarbons, Io, NASA Dragonfly, Saturn, sharp-edged depressions, synthetic aperture radar, Titan, topography
Comments Off on A new map of Titan
Why Titan is awesome #11
Titaaaaan! Here we go again. 😄 As has been reported, NASA has been interested in sending a robotic submarine to Saturn’s moon Titan to explore the hydrocarbon lakes near its north pole. Various dates have been mentioned and in all it seems … Continue reading
Posted in Science
Tagged borescope, Cassini, effervescence, ethane, gaseous nitrogen, hydrocarbons, Kraken Mare, Ligeia Mare, methane, NASA, nitrogen, nucleation, Saturn, Titan, Titan Submarine, Washington State University
Comments Off on Why Titan is awesome #11
Why Titan is awesome #10
Titaaaaan! How much I’ve missed writing these posts since Cassini passed away. Unsurprisingly, it’s after the probe’s demise that we’ve really begun to realise how much of Cassini’s images and data we were consuming on a daily basis, all of … Continue reading
Posted in Science
Tagged acetylene, atmospheric circulation, Cassini, cyanoacetylene, ethane, Hadley cells, hydrogen cyanide, polar subsidence, Saturn, Titan, trace gases
Comments Off on Why Titan is awesome #10
Titan’s lakes might be fizzing with nitrogen bubbles
The results are relevant for future lander-probes to Titan – and to understand the surface chemistry of the only other body in the Solar System known to have liquids on its surface. Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged bubbles, Cassini, cryogenic, ethane, exsolution, flyby, Grand Finale, Kraken Mare, Ligeia Mare, liquid-liquid-vapour equilibrium, magic islands, methane, Michael Malaska, nitrogen, RADAR, Saturn, ternary system, Titan
Comments Off on Titan’s lakes might be fizzing with nitrogen bubbles
Titan’s chemical orgies
New studies of Saturn’s moon Titan should make it more familiar – but the more we learn about it, the more outlandish Titan gets. Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged asphalt, bimodal winds, biphenyl, Cassini Orbiter, Earth, Georgia Institute of Technology, geoscience, hydrocarbons, longitudinal dunes, methane, naphthalene, nitrogen, Qaidam Basin, Saturn, sediment cohesiveness, tar, Titan, triboelectric effect
Comments Off on Titan’s chemical orgies
A falling want of opportunity for life to grip Titan
There is a new possibility for life on Titan. Scientists affiliated with Cornell University have created a blueprint for a cellular lifeform that wouldn’t need water to survive. Water on Earth has been the principal ingredient of, as well as the … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged acrylonitrile azotosome, asphaltene, astrobiology, liquid methane, methanogenic microbes, NASA Ames Research Center, phospholipid bilayer, Titan
Comments Off on A falling want of opportunity for life to grip Titan
A close encounter with the mid-sized, icy kind
In three days, NASA’s Cassini mission will fly by Saturn’s second-largest moon Rhea. While interest in the Saturnian moons has been hogged by the largest – Titan – Cassini‘s images of Rhea could provide important new information about a class of natural satellites … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Dione, Enceladus, Galilean moons, Imaging Science Subsystem, NASA Cassini mission, radiolysis, Rhea, surface charging, tidal warming, Titan
Comments Off on A close encounter with the mid-sized, icy kind
Life on Titan’s world of goo
In the August 8 issue of Science, an international team of scientists has a paper that submits evidence of life in an asphalt lake in Trinidad. Despite having a low water content of 13.5%, it still possesses methane-digesting microbes huddled up … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged asphaltene, methane, methanogenic microbes, Neosartorya fischeri, organic chemistry, outgassing, Pitch Lake, Titan
Comments Off on Life on Titan’s world of goo