Tag Archives: Titan

In the Sky This Week – November 5, 2019

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This entry is part 121 of 148 in the series In the Sky This Week

Jupiter is low on the horizon, and Saturn is high in the southwestern sky after sunset  this week. Mars appears low in the eastern sky just before sunrise. The Moon appears in the south-southeastern sky after sunset this week – going from first quarter, to a waxing gibbous, to full early next week. The full Moon appears high in the southeastern sky above the constellation Orion at 10:00 PM on Nov. 11th. The Pleiades star cluster (M 45) and the constellation Taurus with the bright red star Aldebaran appear nearly overhead at midnight all week. Venus appears low on the southwestern horizon after sunset   Transit of Mercury Transits occur when a planet or another body moves in between another distant body and an observer; transits of our Sun are rare and fascinating astronomical events, and one is happening on November 11, 2019 from 7:36 AM-1:04 PM EST! You will need a telescope to see Mercury cross the face of … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: Reflections on a Mirror

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This entry is part 64 of 191 in the series Across the Universe

This column first ran in The Tablet in March 2010, and again here in 2015. We’re swapping February and March posts this year since most of the February posts from years past were about Lent, which doesn’t start this year until March. The International Astronomical Union’s committee on planetary surfaces nomenclature (on which I serve as their resident “Latin expert” which no doubt would shock my high school Latin teachers) has voted [in 2010] to give a smooth surface feature on Saturn’s moon Titan the name “Jingpo Lacus”, after Jingpo Lake in China. From the way they reflect radar waves, regions like these on Titan’s surface appear to be very, very smooth. Our best guess is that they’re pools of liquid hydrocarbons, something like lakes of liquid natural gas. Titan’s atmosphere, about twice that of Earth’s, has methane clouds and apparently conditions that allow for this methane to rain out and pool on the surface, much like water does on … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: Desert or a dessert?

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This entry is part 18 of 191 in the series Across the Universe

First published in The Tablet in January, 2005, just after the Huygens probe landed on Saturn’s moon Titan. We ran it again here on January, 2015. This text is based on what I submitted, which was edited for length when it was printed.   The most remarkable thing about the images from Saturn’s moon, Titan, which ESA’s Huygens probe has just sent us, is how “familiar” they look. They remind me of Nadar’s 19th century Collodion “wet plate” photographs taken from a balloon above Paris. Black and white, a bit fuzzy, these patterns of light and darkness can be grasped and processed by imagination and memory until we impose meaning on them. I picture myself floating through the clouds, gazing across at an intricate pattern of riverbeds cutting through rough light-colored mountains, flowing down to a flat, wine-dark sea. If these are riverbeds – and they certainly look like textbook examples of the many-branched “dendritic channels” made by rainfall flowing down hills … Continue reading →

Dust Storms on Titan

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Data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has revealed what appear to be giant dust storms in equatorial regions of Saturn’s moon Titan. The discovery, described in a paper published on Sept. 24 in Nature Geoscience, makes Titan the third Solar System body, in addition to Earth and Mars, where dust storms have been observed. The observation is helping scientists to better understand the fascinating and dynamic environment of Saturn’s largest moon. “Titan is a very active moon,” said Sebastien Rodriguez, an astronomer at the Université Paris Diderot, France, and the paper’s lead author. “We already know that about its geology and exotic hydrocarbon cycle. Now we can add another analogy with Earth and Mars: the active dust cycle, in which organic dust can be raised from large dune fields around Titan’s equator.” Titan is an intriguing world — in ways quite similar to Earth. In fact, it is the only moon in the Solar System with a substantial atmosphere and the … Continue reading →

Titan Under the Haze

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These six infrared images of Saturn’s moon Titan represent some of the clearest, most seamless-looking global views of the icy moon’s surface produced so far. The views were created using 13 years of data acquired by the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) instrument on board NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. The images are the result of a focused effort to smoothly combine data from the multitude of different observations VIMS made under a wide variety of lighting and viewing conditions over the course of Cassini’s mission. Previous VIMS maps of Titan (see images below) display great variation in imaging resolution and lighting conditions, resulting in obvious seams between different areas of the surface. With the seams now gone, this new collection of images is by far the best representation of how the globe of Titan might appear to the casual observer if it weren’t for the moon’s hazy atmosphere, and it likely will not be superseded for some time to come. … Continue reading →

Titan: Frozen Moon of Saturn

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It’s hard to believe that it’s been 12 years since the Huygens probe touched down on the surface of Saturn’s moon Titan – the only moon in the solar system with a dense atmosphere and clouds. The probe returned images of rugged terrain as it descended, and revealed what appears to be drainage channels flowing down to a possible shoreline. The lander returned data for about 90 minutes after touchdown. Huygens is the most distant landing of any human-made craft. The Huygens lander was part of the Cassini mission to Saturn; the mission was so successful, it was extended in 2008, and again in 2010. The spacecraft has flown by numerous moons, and returned a treasure trove of scientific data; it has also returned some of the most spectacular imagery ever produced by a robotic probe. Cassini is now in its final months at Saturn, with the probe slated to burn up on Saturn’s atmosphere this September. From JPL Press Release 2017-006: 2005 Historic Descent … Continue reading →

Titan’s Surface Imaged Using New Technique

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Radar images of Titan have always had a grainy appearance due to electronic noise. A new tool suppresses the noise, resulting in clearer views than ever before. During 10 years of discovery, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has pulled back the smoggy veil that obscures the surface of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. Cassini’s radar instrument has mapped almost half of the giant moon’s surface; revealed vast, desert-like expanses of sand dunes; and plumbed the depths of expansive hydrocarbon seas. What could make that scientific bounty even more amazing? Well, what if the radar images could look even better? Thanks to a recently developed technique for handling noise in Cassini’s radar images, these views now have a whole new look. The technique, referred to by its developers as “despeckling,” produces images of Titan’s surface that are much clearer and easier to look at than the views to which scientists and the public have grown accustomed. Typically, Cassini’s radar images have a characteristic grainy … Continue reading →