Posted on 03/22/2008 8:40:05 AM PDT by RightWhale
Pasadena CA (SPX) Mar 20, 2008 NASA's Cassini spacecraft has discovered evidence that points to the existence of an underground ocean of water and ammonia on Saturn's moon Titan. The findings made using radar measurements of Titan's rotation will appear in the March 21 issue of the journal Science. "With its organic dunes, lakes, channels and mountains, Titan has one of the most varied, active and Earth-like surfaces in the solar system," said Ralph Lorenz, lead author of the paper and Cassini radar scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., "Now we see changes in the way Titan rotates, giving us a window into Titan's interior beneath the surface."
Members of the mission's science team used Cassini's Synthetic Aperture Radar to collect imaging data during 19 separate passes over Titan between October 2005 and May 2007. The radar can see through Titan's dense, methane-rich atmospheric haze, detailing never-before-seen surface features and establishing their locations on the moon's surface.
Using data from the radar's early observations, the scientists and radar engineers established the locations of 50 unique landmarks on Titan's surface. They then searched for these same lakes, canyons and mountains in the reams of data returned by Cassini in its later flybys of Titan.
They found prominent surface features had shifted from their expected positions by up to 19 miles. A systematic displacement of surface features would be difficult to explain unless the moon's icy crust was decoupled from its core by an internal ocean, making it easier for the crust to move.
"We believe that about 62 miles beneath the ice and organic-rich surface is an internal ocean of liquid water mixed with ammonia," said Bryan Stiles of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in, Pasadena, Calif. Stiles also is a contributing author to the paper.
The study of Titan is a major goal of the Cassini-Huygens mission because it may preserve, in deep-freeze, many of the chemical compounds that preceded life on Earth. Titan is the only moon in the solar system that possesses a dense atmosphere. The moon's atmosphere is 1.5 times denser than Earth's. Titan is the largest of Saturn's moons, bigger than the planet Mercury.
"The combination of an organic-rich environment and liquid water is very appealing to astrobiologists," Lorenz said. "Further study of Titan's rotation will let us understand the watery interior better, and because the spin of the crust and the winds in the atmosphere are linked, we might see seasonal variation in the spin in the next few years."
Cassini scientists will not have long to wait before another go at Titan. On March 25, just prior to its closest approach at an altitude of 620 miles, Cassini will employ its Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer to examine Titan's upper atmosphere. Immediately after closest approach, the spacecraft's Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer will capture high-resolution images of Titan's southeast quadrant.
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Any form of colonization is going to depend on local resources. The resource that is easiest to ship is human knowledge.
They don’t care. For people like them ignorance is bliss.
terradaily.com
A British-led study of 550 million years of the fossil record has found evidence suggesting evolution drives animals to become increasingly more complex.
University of Bath researchers investigated the different evolutionary branches of the crustacean family tree seeking examples in which animals evolved that were simpler than their ancestors.
Instead they found organisms with increasingly more complex structures and features, suggesting there is some mechanism driving change in this direction.
“If you start with the simplest possible animal body, then there’s only one direction to evolve in — you have to become more complex,” said Matthew Wills of the University of Bath. “Sooner or later, however, you reach a level of complexity where it’s possible to go backwards and become simpler again.
“What’s astonishing,” he said, “is that hardly any crustaceans have taken this backwards route. Instead, almost all branches have evolved in the same direction, becoming more complex in parallel. This is the nearest thing to a pervasive evolutionary rule that’s been found.”
Sorry if we don't all just jump out there and believe what some want to articulate as a "logical" explanation.
You don’t see the grass growing, but it does.
But it's not really very "near" is it?
What happened right about then was the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty. That effectively cut off space development, any possibility, forever. Gov’t won’t be doing space development, and that leaves nobody.
Grass growing? Is see it grow from day to day. What I don’t see is it turning into a tree. And I don’t see it getting tough enough through mutation to withstand my lawnmower. :)
It doesn’t fit the logical idea of proof either.
Could it be “sentient water”?
Everytime we find water on another planet without the evidence of advanced life... .it drives another nail in the coffin of evolution through mutation.
They noticed that surface features have moved several miles relative to the mass of the moon. Therefore: water spirits.
Ward and Brownlee said in ‘Rare Earth’ that water is only one of several necessary conditions for the rise of complex lifeforms. They also believe in Global Warming, or Ward does anyway, so maybe their word isn’t final.
Yep... that’s the thing. As we find water in other environments... now we decide that it still happened here, but the theory of evolution through mutation only applies in the proper environment. What... that life can only mutate to a point? That it can’t really truly adapt to it’s environment and better itself? As the house of cards falls they look for other ways to prop it up. Some new ideas to keep the funding coming.
There is no urgency to decide. Skepticism is still in order, and that applies to both or all hypotheses.
I'm having trouble with a 19 mile shift, of several benchmarks, over a relatively brief period of time. 19 miles, 19 months, 19 passes...
A mile a month seems a lot of floating around in a short time.
I also have trouble with an internal ocean with stable core and floating shell;
I'm picuring one of those toy balls that never bounce he same way twice...or,
Testing a hard boiled egg by spining it on the counter - if it wobles, it's not cooked.
What are he chances that they just screwed up their measurements?
And, if it actually does occur, do I assume the shifts are either in the same direction as spin or orbit, against either one, some discernible tangent caused by both, or random?
Things are drifting around with relative motions. Some things have moved 19 mles, some haven't. They might also be taking gravimetric measurements of the body of the moon for comparison. The measurements are fairly tight by the nature of the instruments.
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