Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Unknown
The most talked about and the largest moon of Saturn – Titan
- has been recently mapped in 3D by using radar data from NASA’s Cassini
Spacecraft, which was launched on October 15, 1997. Titan’s thick, cloudy atmosphere was a
hindrance to astronomers from directly viewing the satellite’s surface, until
now.
| NASA's Cassini - Huygens Spacecraft (launched October 15, 1997) is currently orbiting and observing Saturn |
The new maps were created using a mathematical process known
as splining, which joins together areas of previous topographic maps using
smooth lines.
Ralph Lorenz, a member of the Cassini radar team, said,
"You can take a spot where there is no data, look how close it is to the
nearest data, and use various approaches of averaging and estimating to
calculate your best guess,"
 |
Titan's Polar Regions are imaged for the first time in 3D
using data from the Cassini Probe orbiting Saturn. Source – iTech Post. Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI/JHUAPL/Cornell/Weizmann.
|
Once the maps were joined by this process, features on the
surface of Titan, once hidden, became apparent to researchers. These
newly-discovered areas included three large basins. The maps currently cover
only the Polar Regions (around 11% of the surface), but will help astronomers
in studying how atmospheres other than the Earth’s behave.
Titan is the second-largest moon in the Solar system, over
1,600 miles in diameter, making it larger than the planet Mercury. It is just
behind Ganymede, one of Jupiter’s moons, which is the largest. Titan’s
atmosphere is in many ways similar to Earth as it has abundance of Nitrogen.
But, unlike our home world, the air there is rich in methane. This is the gas responsible
for the thick clouds seen in the atmosphere of this Saturnian moon. Atmospheric
hydrocarbons, commonly known as smog, are also a large part of this choking
mixture of gases. Titan is also the only body other than Earth (yet known) to
have stable bodies of liquid on its surface.
 |
| Titan - Saturn's largest natural satellite |
Lorenz said, "Titan has so much interesting activity -
like flowing liquids and moving sand dunes - but to understand these processes
it's useful to know how the terrain slopes."
Titan will be easier to colonize than Mars, due to various
reasons. Firstly oxygen for our sustenance is
available and the atmosphere is
1.5 times thicker than the Earth. Also, the nitrogen in the atmosphere will be
an aid in the growth of plants. Moreover, the low gravity of the planet could
allow us to strap on wings and fly! Good news for science fiction writers, eh?
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3 comments:
Maybe a possibility of life....but they say for life presence of water is must........have we found any?.....At Io maybe a possibility.....anyways nice technique of mapping which will reveal wonders of this celestial body...
@vipulsa, just saw your blog, cosmicwonders, and was delighted to learn that you;re interested in cosmology. It is this field that can give us the answers to the most seeming-to-be-unanswerable questions.
Yes there is water on Titan, but not in it's pure form. It is mainly mixed with methane. A methane cycle is observed on Titan which is comparable to Earth;s water cycle.
Enceladus, the sixth largest of Saturn's moons has more water content than Titan. Here jets of water and other volatile materials gush out from its icy surface, suggesting that there may be an ocean underneath. Since scientist still do not know much about life in the deep (near or on the ocean bed) no comments can be made about the presence of life. Recent missions have shown presence of life (more evolved than assumed) to be present at these great depths. This has made astronomers to wonder whether life is possible in case there is an ocean on Enceladus...
I hadn't done anything on the blog......created it to share but i am a bit lazy to write..anyways it's always nice to learn something new......although if sulfur based life forms can exist here on earth then maybe methane based life is a possibility.............anyway nasa/esa had already approved project containing Jupiter Europa Orbiter and ESA's Jupiter Ganymede Orbiter which will study moons of jupiter anyhow more data will be revealed...fingers crossed but we have to wait for 10-12 years for that :)
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