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Aside from Earth, Saturn's largest moon, Titan, looks to be the only place in the solar system with copious quantities of liquid (largely, liquid methane and ethane) sitting on its surface. But that's not the only similarity our home and Titan share. A team of planetary astronomers recently announced that the two share yet another feature, which is inextricably linked with that surface liquid: common fog. The team discussed their findings in a recent paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters as well as in a presentation at the American Geophysical Union's 2009 Fall Meeting in San Francisco. Astronomers say...

A photo from Cassini shows sunlight reflecting from a giant lake of methane on the northern half of Saturn's moon Titan. (CNN) -- NASA scientists revealed Friday a first-of-its-kind image from space showing reflecting sunlight from a lake on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. It's the first visual "smoking gun" evidence of liquid on the northern hemisphere of the moon, scientists said, and the first-ever photo from another world showing a "specular reflection" -- which is reflection from a liquid surface. Jaumann said he was surprised when he first saw the photos transmitting from Cassini, orbiting Saturn about a billion...

IF LIFE is to be found beyond our home planet, then our closest encounters with it may come in the dark abyss of some extraterrestrial sea. For Earth is certainly not the only ocean-girdled world in our solar system. As many as five moons of Jupiter and Saturn are now thought to hide seas beneath their icy crusts.

Space scientists in the US and UK are planning an incredible mission to go sailing on an alien lake on the far side of the solar system. They are proposing a mission in NASA's low-cost Discovery series to launch an unmanned, nuclear-powered "boat" to Saturn's biggest moon Titan in 2015. It would bob about on a vast sea of liquid methane called Ligeia Mare, radioing home photos and other data for six months.

August 30, 2009 The needy little boy behind Ted the titan Dominic Lawson As Edward Kennedy was laid to rest yesterday, accompanied by a further fusillade of eulogies, we were forcibly made aware, once again, of the American fixation with the idea of personal redemption. The British are a less forgiving people. While even the right-wing US press skated around the late senator’s appalling personal behaviour over many years, in this country even politically sympathetic newspapers published excoriating accounts, concentrating on the incident 40 years ago when the 37-year-old Ted Kennedy abandoned Mary Jo Kopechne to die alone in a...

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, better known as NASA, said in July that it had found the "smoking gun" that caused the space shuttle Columbia to break apart as it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere on Feb. 1: a piece of foam that had peeled off the external fuel tank and struck the shuttle's wing 1 minute and 22 seconds after liftoff. But many experts looking at the tragedy that killed seven astronauts say there is a deeper cause. They say that the metaphorical smoking gun should be painted green. Because of demands that the agency help to front for...

...We’ve been bringing up this problem for years. This latest paper shows that no solution has been forthcoming for over two decades; in fact, the problem has only gotten worse. The consensus Age of the Solar System (A.S.S.) is 4.6 billion years. 10 million years is 1/450th of that value, and that is the maximum that the empirical evidence permits. If planetary scientists truly followed the evidence where it leads, as scientists are supposed to do, they would have to conclude Titan is young. Evidence from Enceladus, Iapetus, Mercury, comets, Mars, the moon and many other bodies that showcase evidence...

Titan not only has an atmosphere it has hydrocarbon lakes, oceans, sand dunes and now research has just been published proving Saturn's moon is sparkling with electrical activity. Scientists are in general agreement that organic molecules, the precursors to life on Earth, are a consequence of lightning in the atmosphere. Now, using data from the Huygens probe that descended through Titan's atmosphere in 2005 and continued transmitting for 90 minutes after touchdown, Spanish scientists have "unequivocally" proven that Titan has electrical storms too. The presence of electrical activity in the atmosphere is causing much excitement as this could mean that...

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...

Saturn's smoggy moon Titan has hundreds of times more natural gas and other liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, scientists said today. The hydrocarbons rain from the sky on the miserable moon, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes. This much was known. But now the stuff has been quantified using observations from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. "Titan is just covered in carbon-bearing material — it's a giant factory of organic chemicals," said Ralph Lorenz, a Cassini radar team member from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. "This vast carbon inventory...

Saturn's smoggy moon Titan has hundreds of times more natural gas and other liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, scientists said today. The hydrocarbons rain from the sky on the miserable moon, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes. This much was known. But now the stuff has been quantified using observations from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. "Titan is just covered in carbon-bearing material — it's a giant factory of organic chemicals," said Ralph Lorenz, a Cassini radar team member from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. "This vast carbon inventory...

Saturn's orange moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new Cassini data. The hydrocarbons rain from the sky, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes. The new findings from the study led by Ralph Lorenz, Cassini radar team member from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, USA, are reported in the 29 January 2008 issue of the Geophysical Research Letters. "Titan is just covered in carbon-bearing material--it's a giant factory of organic chemicals," said Lorenz. "This vast carbon inventory is an important...

The enigmatic Saturnian moon Titan is still yielding surprising new details years after scientists first pierced its thick haze veil. The vision now emerging of Saturn's largest moon, with its giant dunes and oceanless surface, is perhaps a glimpse of Earth's desert future. "Titan may be very different from Earth today, but maybe not Earth tomorrow," Jonathan Lunine, Cassini-Huygens interdisciplinary scientist at the University of Arizona, told SPACE.com. The surface of Titan was a total mystery before the Huygens probe infiltrated past its dense hazy atmosphere in 2005. After a seven-year voyage aboard the Cassini spacecraft, Huygens spent roughly two-and-a-half...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - NASA's Cassini spacecraft has found evidence of huge seas -- one of them bigger than any of North America's Great Lakes -- on Saturn's largest moon, scientists said on Tuesday. Scientists studying the images taken by the probe, which blasted off a decade ago, said the seas on Titan were likely filled with liquid methane or ethane and that the discovery reinforced previous theories. "We've long hypothesized about oceans on Titan, and now with multiple instruments we have a first indication of seas that dwarf the lakes seen previously," said Jonathan Lunine, a University of Arizona...

The Cassini radar image (left) shows one of Titan's seas is larger than Lake Superior (right) Nasa's Cassini probe has found evidence for seas, probably filled with liquid hydrocarbons, at the high northern latitudes of Saturn's moon Titan.The dark features, detected by Cassini's radar, are much bigger than any lakes already detected on Titan. The largest is some 100,000 sq km (39,000 sq miles) - greater in extent than North America's Lake Superior. It covers a greater fraction of Titan than the proportion of Earth covered by the Black Sea. The Black Sea is the Earth's largest inland sea...

What should follow the great success of Cassini-Huygens? The European and US space agencies are moving ahead on their next major missions to explore the Solar System. Nasa has begun choosing a destination for a "flagship" robotic venture along the lines of Cassini-Huygens, which has been exploring Saturn and its moons. It is considering four targets: the Jupiter system, Jupiter's moon Europa, and Saturn's moons Enceladus and Titan. The European Space Agency has called for proposals for one flagship mission and another medium-sized mission. Europa, Titan and Enceladus are also among the destinations expected to be proposed under the...

A mammoth cloud half the size of the contiguous United States and spotted on Saturn's moon Titan might be what's filling up lakes discovered there last year, scientists say. 'This cloud system may be a key element in the global formation of organics and their interactions with the surface,' said study team member Christophe Sotin of the University of Nantes, France. Imaged by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 29, 2006, the cloud [image] is about 1,500 miles (2,400 km) in diameter and engulfs Titan's entire north pole. It only recently became visible, emerging from a shadow as winter turns to...

Images shot last summer by NASA's Cassini spacecraft provide the strongest evidence yet that Titan, a saturnian moon and one of the most Earth-like celestial bodies in the solar system, is dotted with a multitude of liquid lakes. "At the time we first announced it, we were like, 'Well, we think these are probably lakes,’ but that was about our level of confidence," said study team member Ellen Stofan of University College London and Caltech. "I would say at this point, we've analyzed the data to the extent that we feel very confident that they are liquid-filled lakes."

SAN FRANCISCO - The international Cassini spacecraft spotted a nearly mile-high mountain range shrouded in hazy clouds on Saturn's giant moon Titan, scientists reported Tuesday. The mountains, which stretch for nearly 100 miles, surprised researchers who re-analyzed the images to double-check that they were real and not shadows of other surface features. Robert Brown, a Cassini scientist from the University of Arizona, said the mountains reminded him of California's Sierra Nevada range. "You can call this the Titan Sierra," said Brown, who unveiled the new infrared images at an American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. The mountains are the...

The currently accepted rotation period of Saturn came from radio measurements obtained during the Voyagers 1 and 2 flybys of Saturn in 1980-81, and is 10 hour 39 minutes and 24 seconds plus or minus 7 seconds. The first hint of something strange at Saturn came in 1997 when Alain Lecacheux, Patrick Galopeau, and Monique Aubier, from Observatoire de Paris, published a paper in the Austrian Academy of Science Press reporting that Saturn's radio rotation period was about one percent longer than the value obtained from Voyager. Now, during the Cassini approach to Saturn, where the radio signals from the...

This lake is part of a larger image taken by the Cassini radar instrument during a flyby of Saturn's moon Titan on Sept. 23, 2006. It shows clear shorelines that are reminiscent of terrestrial lakes. With Titan's colder temperatures and hydrocarbon-rich atmosphere, however, the lakes likely contain a combination of methane and ethane, not water. Centered near 74 degrees north, 65 degrees west longitude, this lake is roughly 20 kilometers by 25 kilometers (12 to 16 miles) across. It features several narrow or angular bays, including a broad peninsula that on Earth would be evidence that the surrounding terrain...

Last Gas Before Pluto The Hydrocarbon Lakes of Titan - Courtesy of the European Space Agency The Oil Glut At The End Of The Universe By Russell Seitz The Rolling Stones are not alone. This summer’s nostalgia binge includes The Beachboys and the return to TV of Paul Ehrlich, of population bomb’ fame . At the height of the last ‘energy crisis’, the great Neomalthusian sage predicted that Mick Jagger’s 40th birthday party would be attended by global starvation and the implosion of natural gas supplies . No such luck, so Ehrlich recently turned to joining Al Gore in...

An ion engine several times more powerful than any previously flown is being tested by NASA. It could propel a spacecraft all the way to Saturn's moon Titan. Ion engines operate by removing electrons from atoms of a gas – usually xenon – and then accelerating the resulting ions through an electric field. The ions are shot out the back of the engine to create thrust. The engines provide much less thrust at any given time than do rockets. But they are much more fuel efficient, providing a steady source of propulsion that could ideally be used to take spacecraft...

Scientists said Monday they have found the first widespread evidence of giant hydrocarbon lakes on the surface of Saturn's planet-size moon Titan. The cluster of hydrocarbon lakes was spotted near Titan's frigid north pole during a weekend flyby by the international Cassini spacecraft, which flew within 590 miles of the moon. Researchers counted about a dozen lakes ranging from 6 miles to 62 miles wide. Some lakes, which appeared as dark patches in radar images, were connected by channels while others had tributaries flowing into them. Several were dried up, but the ones that contained liquid were most likely a...

New views of the most distant touchdown ever made by a spacecraft are being released today by NASA, the European Space Agency and the University of Arizona. The movies show the dramatic descent of the Huygens probe to the surface of Saturn's moon Titan on Jan. 14, 2005.

Recent images of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, bear a striking resemblance to some of the deserts on Earth. The pictures, captured by the Cassini spacecraft as it flew by Titan last October and released today, show sand dunes at Titan's equator much like those in the Sahara desert. "It's bizarre," said Ralph Lorenz of University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. "These images from a moon of Saturn look just like radar images of Namibia or Arabia." On Earth, all wind is ultimately a result of heat differences produced by sunlight that warms the planet unevenly. Scientists have long assumed...

Earth rocks could have taken life to Titan 18:08 17 March 2006 NewScientist.com news service Maggie McKee, Houston Titan may offer a 'soft' landing for life-carrying boulders blasted from Earth (Image: NASA/JPL)Related Boulders blasted away from the Earth's surface after a major impact could have travelled all the way to the outer solar system, new calculations reveal. The work suggests that terrestrial microbes on the rocks could in theory have landed on Saturn's giant moon, Titan. But whether they could have survived once there remains unclear. The fact that meteorites from the Moon and Mars have landed on Earth confirms...

New study shows methane on Saturn's moon Titan not biological NASA scientists are about to publish conclusive studies showing abundant methane of a non-biologic nature is found on Saturn's giant moon Titan, a finding that validates a new book's contention that oil is not a fossil fuel. "We have determined that Titan's methane is not of biologic origin," reports Hasso Niemann of the Goddard Space Flight Center, a principal NASA investigator responsible for the Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer aboard the Cassini-Huygens probe that landed on Titan Jan. 14. Niemann concludes the methane "must be replenished by geologic processes on Titan,...

PARIS - Saturn's planet-size moon Titan has dramatic weather, with freezing temperatures, carbon- and nitrogen-rich clouds and possibly lightning, scientists said Wednesday, describing a world that may have looked like Earth before life developed. The European Space Agency's probe landed on Titan in January, uncovering some mysteries of the methane-rich globe - the only moon in the solar system known to have a thick atmosphere. Scientists presented detailed results of months of study in the journal Nature and at a news conference in Paris. Titan has long intrigued researchers because it is surrounded by a thick blanket of nitrogen and...

By finding the likely solution to one puzzle about Saturn's largest moon, Titan, astronomers think they have come upon an explanation for another: how Titan sustains an atmosphere rich in methane. New observations by the Cassini spacecraft and ground-based telescopes have focused on trying to understand the peculiar patterns of clouds on Titan. Clouds are rare there, except over the south pole and in the midlatitudes of the southern hemisphere. The polar clouds are stormy and persistent, with lifetimes of weeks. The other clouds, at a latitude the equivalent of the one that crosses New Zealand and Argentina, appear and...

America's Titan rocket made its final launch today, blasting off from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base to haul a top-secret reconnaissance satellite into orbit. Liftoff of the 368th and last Titan occurred at 11:05 a.m. PDT (2:05 p.m. EDT; 1805 GMT).

With Lynndie England's conviction earlier this week, nine US soldiers have now been sentenced for their role in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. But is it enough? DER SPIEGEL looks at two lives destroyed by Abu Ghraib. One, an Iraqi community leader -- the other, his American guard. On the day he lost his innocence before the eyes of the world, Sergeant Javal Davis was sitting in the mess hall at Victory Base in Abu Ghraib prison, eating a plate of rice and tuna fish. Davis ate mechanically, ignoring what the other soldiers were saying, occasionally glancing up at a...

The idea of a large sea on Saturn's moon Titan was all but ruled out after the Cassini mission found no evidence early in its mission. But a new image shows what scientists think is a shoreline with bays and channels feeding liquid into a possible sea. Scientists have long speculated that Titan might contain liquid methane or other hydrocarbons. The chemistry resembles prebiotic Earth, but Titan lacks liquid water. Nonetheless, earlier this month another group of researchers speculated that Titan might actually harbor life today. "This radar data is among the most telling evidence so far for a shoreline,"...

Recent findings from NASA's Cassini spacecraft and new discoveries about organisms here on Earth that thrive in extreme conditions are causing scientists to rethink the possibility that there may be life on Saturn's cloudy moon Titan. Analyzing data from Cassini's recent Titan flybys, scientists at the Southwestern Research Institute (SwRI) in Texas and Washington State University announced last week that several of the key elements crucial for life on Earth are also present on Titan, including liquid reservoirs, organic molecules and ample energy sources. Discovered in 1655 by a Dutch astronomer, Titan is the second largest moon in the solar...

IF LIFE exists on Titan, Saturn's biggest moon, we could soon know about it - as long as it's the methane-spewing variety. The chemical signature of microbial life could be hidden in readings taken by the European Space Agency's Huygens probe when it landed on Titan in January. Titan's atmosphere is about 5 per cent methane, and Chris McKay of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffet Field, California, thinks that some of it could be coming from methanogens, or methane-producing microbes. Now he and Heather Smith of the International Space University in Strasbourg, France, have worked out the likely diet...

LOS ANGELES - The international Cassini spacecraft has spotted what appears to be an ice volcano on Saturn's planet-size moon, a finding that may help explain the source of Titan's thick atmosphere. Infrared images snapped by the orbiting Cassini reveal a 20-mile-wide dome that appears to be a cryovolcano, a volcanic-like vent that spews forth ice instead of lava. Scientists theorize the volcano at one time spat out icy plumes that released methane into Titan's atmosphere. The findings appear in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. Titan is the only moon in the solar system that has a significant atmosphere...

Saturn's moon Titan shows an unusual bright spot that has scientists mystified. The spot, approximately the size and shape of West Virginia, is just southeast of the bright region called Xanadu and is visible to multiple instruments on the Cassini spacecraft. The 483-kilometer-wide (300-mile) region may be a "hot" spot -- an area possibly warmed by a recent asteroid impact or by a mixture of water ice and ammonia from a warm interior, oozing out of an ice volcano onto colder surrounding terrain. Other possibilities for the unusual bright spot include landscape features holding clouds in place or unusual materials...

Lockheed Martin's Titan 4 B successful into Space 0110 GMT (9:10 p.m. EDT Fri.) With this successful delivery of the national security satellite payload into orbit aboard the final Titan from the Cape, a celebration is upcoming tonight. "A lot of our VIPs and folks are gonna speak to the troops and thank them, kind of a farewell in that regard," said Ben Dusenbery, Lockheed Martin's director of Titan launch operations at the Cape. 0103 GMT (9:03 p.m. EDT Fri.) "A great ending to a spectacular history," said Walt Yager, Lockheed Martin's vice president of the Titan program. This was...

PORTLAND, Maine -- The Portland waterfront is still awash with rumors about the mystery ship that's been cloaked in secrecy since it tied up in the harbor three weeks ago. The Portland Press Herald said the latest theory is that the Sage may be carrying equipment used to observe an Air Force Titan rocket on a top-secret mission. The rocket's flight path would take it over the ocean on a trajectory parallel to the East Coast. Others believe that the vessel is in town to track the space shuttle Discovery. The Sage, which is about 180 feet long and has...

Cassini Finds Organic Material on Titan Tue Apr 26, 9:43 AM ET Add to My Yahoo! Science - AP PASADENA, Calif. - A close flyby of Saturn's big moon Titan by the international Cassini spacecraft revealed an upper atmosphere brimming with complex organic material, a finding that could hold clues to how life arose on Earth, scientists said Monday. Photo AP Photo Cassini flew within 638 miles of Titan's frozen surface on April 16 and discovered a hydrocarbon-laced upper atmosphere. Titan's atmosphere is mainly made up of nitrogen and methane, the simplest type of hydrocarbon. But scientists were surprised to...

PASADENA, Calif. - A close flyby of Saturn's big moon Titan by the international Cassini spacecraft revealed an upper atmosphere brimming with complex organic material, a finding that could hold clues to how life arose on Earth, scientists said Monday. Cassini flew within 638 miles of Titan's frozen surface on April 16 and discovered a hydrocarbon-laced upper atmosphere. Titan's atmosphere is mainly made up of nitrogen and methane, the simplest type of hydrocarbon. But scientists were surprised to find complex organic material in the latest flyby. Because Titan is extremely cold — about minus 290 degrees — scientists expected the...

NAVAL STATION EVERETT, Wash. (NNS) -- The Navy unveiled its future as it officially christened its revolutionary new Littoral Surface Craft - Experimental, commonly referred to as "X-Craft," Feb. 5. Developed by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), this high-speed, aluminum catamaran is designed to test a variety of technologies that could allow the Navy to operate more effectively in littoral, or shallow, waters. Officially, the ship's been named Sea Fighter and has been assigned hull number FSF 1, which stands for fast sea frame. X-Craft marks the first time a catamaran was designed and built specifically for the Navy....

FRANKFURT, Germany — Saturn's largest moon contains all the ingredients for life, but senior scientists studying data from a European probe ruled out the possibility Titan's abundant methane stems from living organisms. More than a week after the Huygens probe plunged through Titan's atmosphere, researchers continue to pore over data collected for clues to how the only moon known to have a significant atmosphere came to be and whether it can provide clues to how life arose here. Initial findings have revealed an abundance of methane on the surface of Titan — the first moon other than Earth's to be...

Scientists will comb data sent back from Titan by the Huygens probe for the chemical signature of life in a bid to identify the moon's source of methane. Methane is constantly destroyed by UV light so there must be a source within Titan to replenish the atmosphere. Life is a possible - though some think unlikely - source of this hydrocarbon along with geological processes. The surface is too cold for biology, but microbes could survive in an ocean within Titan, a senior scientist says. Methane can also be released from a trapped form called clathrate and produced by...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Saturn's moon Titan is covered by "dirty" ice ridges and seas of liquid natural gas, a team of scientists said on Friday after a week of research into data from the space probe Huygens. "We've got a flammable world," said Toby Owen, an atmospheric scientist, at a news conference from European Space Agency offices in Paris monitored on NASA (news - web sites) TV. After a seven-year piggyback trip from Earth on board the Saturn probe Cassini, the European-designed Huygens separated in December and fell toward Titan, entering the moon's atmosphere last Friday. The probe, part...

FRANKFURT, Germany - A European spacecraft landed in mud when it hit the surface of Titan, a scientist said Tuesday, revealing animated pictures of the final feet of its descent to the moon of Saturn. The latest pictures underline beliefs that the Huygens probe landed near a large body of liquid on Friday when it ended a seven-year mission by the European Space Agency to the previously untouched moon. Another series of photos showed how Titan's hazy atmosphere gave way to a more solid, but clearly varied surface as the spacecraft tumbled and spun toward its final resting place. "There...

I just watched on NASA Web TV the European Space Agency's bizzarre idea of how to present the first landing on a new planet to the public. It was a sorry spectacle - probably the worst PR disaster in the entire history of space travel. Never has a great technical and scientific feat been made to look more trivial. First, they did not place the raw images immediately on the Web in real time, or show them on TV, or even show them on internal monitors like JPL has done at least since Voyager. Instead we all had to wait...

DARMSTADT, Germany - Pictures snapped by the Titan probe and a low, whooshing sound picked up by an on-board microphone drew gasps and applause from scientists, as the mission to Saturn's moon continued its breathtaking revelations from more than 900 million miles across the solar system. Data beamed back Saturday from Titan, one of Saturn's moons, sketched a picture of a pale orange landscape with a spongy surface topped by a thin crust. "The closest analogues are wet sand or clay," said John Zarnecki, in charge of instruments analyzing Titan's surface. Scientists at the European Space Agency were clearly excited...

This will be the official thread where all articles and pictures pretainig to Titan should be posted here.