Is the Jury back on Titan surface liquid?

[bad_drawing]

The reason I bring this up is because earlier I was reading this article:<br /><br />http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/051130_titan_update.html<br /><br />Which has this line in it: "Some scientists speculated that a tide had just gone out and the probe landed on the still-wet beach"<br /><br />Before I was under the impression that we still weren't sure. I know we've gone back and forth on this a few times and I'm just curious if this article represents a concensus forming on decent sized bodies of liquid on the surface. <br /><br />I remain fascinated with the idea of another body in our solar system with a substantial cycle of precipitation, evaporation, (and sublimation?). <br /><br />Anybody have any info on what the primary ideas concerning this currently are?

 

[telfrow]

from today's Mars/Huygens press press briefing:<br /><br /> http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Results_from_Mars_Express_and_Huygens/SEMSCVULWFE_0_ov.html <br /><br />(See "Rain, wind, haze...")<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>

 

[bad_drawing]

Thanks Telfrow! I think this paragraph had the meat and potatoes of what i was looking for:<br /><br />The irreversible conversion of methane into other hydrocarbons in Titan's stratosphere implies a surface or subsurface 'reservoir' of methane. Although the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini orbiter has not seen a global surface reservoir, and DISR images do not show liquid hydrocarbon pools on the surface either, this instrument's images do reveal the traces of flowing liquid

 

[centsworth_II]

<font color="yellow">"...this instrument's images do reveal the traces of flowing liquid..."</font><br /><br />If you call 200 meter wide, 100 meter deep gorges "traces".<br /><br /><br /> <br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[telfrow]

<b>Life on Saturn's moon Titan unlikely</b><br /><br />Snips:<br /><br /><i>Saturn's moon Titan resembles Earth in many ways but is unlikely to support life, scientists said on Wednesday after almost a year of research into data from the space probe Huygens.<br /><br />After a seven-year trip from Earth piggy-backed on the Saturn probe Cassini, the European-designed Huygens separated last December and headed for Titan, entering the moon's atmosphere in January this year.<br /><br />"Huygens descended through a hazy, windy and turbulent atmosphere," Jean-Pierre Lebreton, Huygens mission scientist at the European Space Agency, told a news conference in Paris.<br /><br />"This revealed an extraordinary world which resembled the Earth in many respects -- but there are also clear differences," he said. "The laws of physics, the laws of chemistry are the same. The ingredients are different."</i><br /><br /><i>Francois Raulin, another of the experts involved in the project, said analysis of data from Huygens showed it was unlikely Titan could support life.<br /><br />"If there is or if there was life on Titan, the best place would be in the interior," he said. "Water is a prerequisite for life but liquid water, not ice. There is no liquid water on the surface because it's too cold."<br /><br />He added: "The only chance of having permanent liquid water on Titan is inside."</i><br /><br /><br /><br />Full story here: http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/12/01/titan.life.reut/index.html<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>

 

[jatslo]

<font color="orange">Saturn's moon Titan resembles Earth in many ways but is unlikely to support life, scientists said on Wednesday after almost a year of research into data from the space probe Huygens.</font> <---- You know, I would be more inclined to state liquid surface water on Titan than I would any other Saturian Moon, because the surface pressure will support water.

 

[bonzelite]

the biggest buzz-kill to that would be the cryogenic temperatures. titan's water as ice would be more like steel or aluminum in hardness. metallic water. <br /><br />were there hot volcanic vents, certainly water as a liquid could probably easily pond there. it seems that the only vulcanism on titan, though, is cryogenic ice eruptions. <img src="/images/icons/frown.gif" /><br /><br />a compelling "what if" would be --well, look at Enceladus. if liquid water plumes can issue forth from fissures on a tiny ice world, then anything is up for grabs. we barely, almost approaching a zero-factor, know anything about Titan. <br /><br />we need to send out an armada of probes to all of these worlds, big time. blanket the system with them. <br />

 

[jatslo]

If you pee in the Titan woods, will your pee freeze before it hits the ground, Yes or No? If yes, then what temperature would your pee have to be to transverse from points A and B where distance is four feet, could you make a hot puddle of pee, and how can that puddle of pee remain a puddle?

 

[bad_drawing]

Hi Bonzelite,<br /><br />I couldn't agree more (on the saturation of the solar system with probes) I know its not exactly practical right now and we have a lot of stuff on the table where the money is going towards, but the success and data retrieved from each of these missions just makes me crave more. <br /><br />I wonder if in the future some of the Flagship robotic probes like Cassini could or will have a bundle of mini probes they can drop off. With students now designing small satellites with todays ever shrinking and more accessable electronics, I imagine one could build a dozen or so small probes that ride piggyback with the primary craft and after knocking around [the system that the primary probe is exploring] it could release the small probes independantly towards targets of interest. Each small probe could be packed with various sensors, a decent camera, and transmision system just capable enough of sending and receiving info from its mothership where it could be relayed to earth. Even if the probes were passive or purely ballistic I imagine a lot of very useful info could be obtained. This is all a case of the "I wish"es, I'm sure the engineering would still be expensive and in depth even if kept minimal... but I can't help but think one day we'll see more set ups like this.<br /><br />Huh...I just had a flashback. Didn't the Pioneer-Venus probe have a series of ballistic probes that rode it piggyback? Time for me to play with google.<br /><br />One more thing. I realize that in the interest of science, cameras can be irrelevant when studying certain things, but with todays powerful CCDs and continuing advances in imaging technology, I think all probes should have at least a minimally decent imaging system. nothing captures the imagination of kids and ordinary folks more than real pictures of what these probes are seeing and where they're at....and anything that will generate interest in science with young people and lay people is absolutely worth

 

[mikeemmert]

Howcome the liquid of life has to be water?<br /><br />When the aerosols in Titan's atmosphere were pyrolyzed, they produced ammonia and cyanide, unexpected results. There is no ammonia in the atmosphere, so this had to be made out of nitrogen and methane, it couldn't have just been a condensate.<br /><br />What were those aerosols, anyway? Microbes, maybe?

 

[bonzelite]

baddrawing, hello back. yes, i agree with you totally. i think as nanotechnology, nanorobotics, becomes mainstreamed this will revolutionize the approaches to interplanetary missions. a system of robotic probes no larger than a hot wheels car, replete with a suite of super-sensitive instruments, could be dispatched to dozens, hundreds, of celestial bodies, in mulitple arrays. <br /><br />for example, a mars suite of robots could blanket the planet by the hundreds, bury themselves in the sand like desert insects, and conduct sensing and testing independently and INTERdependently of the array of other robots buried in the sand across thousands of miles of desert. <br /><br />reconaissance balloons or winged robot drones above could relay the data back to an uplink satellite. meanwhile, thousands of such nanoprobes could be swarming in an orb ready to burst open at callisto, io, europa, ganymede, titan, enceladus, triton, venus, barnard's star, xena, pluto, etc...<br /><br />an entire infrastructure on earth would need to be developed to monitor all of these missions that would be unfolding constantly and simultaneously. engineers would be in demand forevermore. an entire industry would blossom. and mankind's knowledge of the cosmos would explode at an alarming rate never before seen.

 

[bonzelite]

mikee, that is VERY compelling a question. the ammonia and cyanide were byproducts of the pyrolysis. why did these evolve? <br /><br />as well, who is to say that cryogenic temperatures are hostile to all life?

 

[dragon04]

<font color="yellow"> as well, who is to say that cryogenic temperatures are hostile to all life? </font><br /><br />It's not so much the hositility to life that cryogenic temperatures pose (frozen sperm at the sperm back does just fine when warmed back up), but the proper chemical processes being able to get life going at those temperatures in the first place.<br /><br /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>"2012.. Year of the Dragon!! Get on the Dragon Wagon!".</em> </div>

 

[Philotas]

If life bases itself on methane, it won`t have any trouble keeping the necessary chemical reactions going under cryogenic temperatures. The problem is that few scientists are willing to speculate about life using other liquids than water.<br />Oddly enough, only because the life we know; on one single planet where other liquids do not exist; is not based on other liquids than water. <br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[bad_drawing]

What exactly makes water the ideal liquid for life that other liquids could not perform under a separate set of circumstances? Is it the fact that its such a great solvent?

 

[bonzelite]

exactly a great question. why is water the poster child for all metabolism? <br /><br />to me, it seems to reason that if life will adapt and rise in specific environments to it's liking. you take a fish out of water on earth and it will suffocate on land. you put a person in the ocean and they will die. <br /><br />take that and apply it to other planets' environments: any extant life that transpires there will be suited to that specific planet's set of parameters. to think life in all it's diversity on the earth is the only place such a phenomenon occurs is arrogant and utterly brain dead an assumption.

 

[jatslo]

<font color="yellow">If you pee in the Titan woods, will your pee freeze before it hits the ground, Yes or No? If yes, then what temperature would your pee have to be to transverse from points A and B where distance is four feet, could you make a hot puddle of pee, and how can that puddle of pee remain a puddle?</font><br /><br />I would rather pee on an electric fence than in the Titan woods. <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" />

 

[JonClarke]

Indeed. We could have life that thrives in liquid methane, ammonia, or some other fluid.<br /><br />The chemists among us can correct me on this, but water is an ideal solvent. It is stable over a wide temperature range. Water is common in the universe, more common that either methane or ammonia. It is also liquid over a temperature range that allows both complex organic molecules and rapid chemical reactions.<br /><br />People have speculated about life using exotic chemistries and even not using chemistry at all. But we have to start looking somewhere and narrow down the possibilities. This means we have to start with life as we know it. The one common environmental factor to life on earth is liquid water. All terrestrial life is organically based. Like water, organic compounts are common in the universe.<br /><br />Therefore as a starting point we should look for life on other planets that is based on organic compounds and requires liquid water. Not that it should blind us to other possibilities, but it is an essential starting point. <br /><br />Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[mikeemmert]

Excuse me while I mumble some data, no I don't know where this is going. Source: Wikipedia.<br /><br />hydrogen cyanide: freezing point -13.,4 degrees C., 260 degrees Kelvin<br /><br />ammonia: melting point - 78.27 degrees C., 195.42 degrees Kelvin. Methane disolves in ammonia.<br /><br />Methane: melting point -182.5 degrees centigrade, 90.6 degrees Kelvin; boiling point -161.6 degrees centigrade, 111.55 degrees Kelvin, but those are at one atmosphere, unlikely on an alien world.<br /><br />phosphine: 134 °C (89 K)<br /><br />ethane: -182.76 °C (90.34 K); ethylene, -169.1 °C (no Kelvin figure); acetylene: -80.7 °C; diacetylene, -10 degrees centigrade. These compounds contain chemical energy in the carbon-carbon double or triple bond. They can be produced by ultaviolet irradiation of methane and so could provide energy to jumpstart a metabolic system which could then evolve.<br /><br />I would rather imagine that any organism that uses the dim ultraviolet light at Titan to produce acetylene would be humble indeed. Any system produced by some random mutation that uses longer wavelengths would have a distinct evolutionary advantage and would proliferate wildly, taking over almost completely.<br /><br />We need another probe, obviously. A sample return mission would be much better. Samples would have to be kept at a low temperature.<br /><br />Since life not-as-we-know-it seems not to be ruled out, I think it's very important to spend the money and solve the problems of such an advanced probe. I would envision a nuclear powered airplane of some kind, perhaps a balloon/airplane or something like that. A hot air ballon would work great in Titan's thick atmosphere and low gravity.<br /><br />Well, enough speculation. The data we have is the data we have. In my opinion, the idea of the aerosols being bugs is not completely ruled out. I'm quite sure there are other opinions and I would sure like to hear them. Thank you.

 

[mikeemmert]

Hi, Jon;<br /><br />You said; "...we have to start looking somewhere and narrow down the possibilities. This means we have to start with life as we know it.""<br /><br />Actually we need to start looking at places that are accessible to present or attainable technologies. Mars and Titan are the only presently accessible locations; Europa is accessible to technologies we know we can do. I think Titan is easier than Europa.<br /><br />I think Titan is a much better bet than Europa because life has to have an energy source. I don't see how much energy can get through the thick layer of ice on Europa.

 

[JonClarke]

Very good point about the limited places we can address these issues at present. Mind you, in the past week Encedalus is looking like more an outstside chance. I agree that itan is probably easier than Europa.<br /><br />I also agree Titan is looking like a much better place than Europa from a habitat point of view as well. There are mutiple energy sources and multiple niches possible.<br /><br />As I understand it, the postulated energy source for Europan life is geothermal, so it does not matter how thick the ice is for that purpose.<br /><br />Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[centsworth_II]

<font color="yellow">"I think Titan is a much better bet than Europa because life has to have an energy source."</font><br /><br />As Jon said, the sun is not the only possible source of energy. There is debate as to whether life on Earth got its start using solar energy, or in deep sea thermal vents, far from the reach of sunlight. The presence of a vast liquid water ocean itself would indicated the presence of much energy, required to keep the water liquid. Much less energy is required to keep methane, or the ammonia/water mix proposed on Titan, liquid. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[Philotas]

<font color="yellow">It's very simple. If someone claims that there is life which does not need water, then they have, first of all, just eliminated ALL known form of life and postulated, without a shred of evidence that there is another form of life.</font><br /><br />All known forms of life comes frome one planet where only one liquid exist. There is, however, most likely millions(if not billions) planets just in our own galaxy, with a wide range of different conditions. We know fairly good how life is one of them, but every year we find just more and more extreme organisms on it. We don`t know much about life because we have samples from only one planet.<br /><br /><br /><font color="yellow">There is NO life without liquid water. Basic fact.</font><br /><br />That`s not a fact. We haven`t been looking for life where the conditions opens up for lifeforms based on other liquids than water; hence ruling out that is unscientifically.<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[unlearningthemistakes]

<font color="yellow">That`s not a fact.</font><br /><br />so, what is fact for you? can you pinpoint other organisms living without water? <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>pain is inevitable</p><p>suffering is optional </p> </div>

 

[Philotas]

A bio-chemic experiment showed that sugar like molecules found themselves quite comfortable in liquid nitrogen. However, only the molecules based on silicon "thrived", the ones based on carbon did not work out very well. Same is for the opposite: silcon molecules doesn`t do it well in water, while carbons do.<br /><br />In other words, life on Triton should actually work; as long as silicon can replace carbon. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>