Titan exploration

[titanian]

The latest image of Titan taken from the Cassini Huygens spacecraft brings a new evidence that Titan is governed by a complex meteorology with clouds like Venus and our Planet. But how to explain that the spacecraft has spotted a cloud layer, 400 km across, in the south pole, an area supposed to be the coldest place on this moon?.Clouds of hydrocarbon molecules (?) might be specifically developing in the polar region (according to what we know up to date).I had the idea that cloud layers could emerge in a liquid area.That would be the case in the south pole of Titan where the mean surface temperature would be over -160°c ( -256°F) allowing the presence of seas of methane while the areas towards the equatorial region would be too warm to host seas of this kind.Let's recall that the measurements predict a surface temperature close to -180°c ( -292°F) which is considerably cold for such a moon with a dense atmosphere likely to generate greenhouse effects.Obviously, all that is only speculation!

 

[rogers_buck]

J wouldn't assume the poles are the coldest part of Titan. Titan is in the grip of a greenhouse effect from the atmospheric methane. On Venus the temperature is pretty much uniform between the poles and the equator, light and dark side. I don't know if Titan has a low-key version of this for a fact but just looking at the strenght of the greenhouse vs. the relative solar flux it seems more Venusian in strength than terrestrial.<br /><br />Maybe the clouds form as a result of a geologic feature, mountains + lake?<br /><br /><br />

 

[remcook]

THe uniformity of the temperature on Venus is mainly due to the fact that each hemisphere has only one Hdley cell. This allows heat transport over the entire globe, therefore mixing the atmosphere.<br /><br />Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[rlb2]

I deleted my post "Titan" because you started this one before I did. No use duplicating the process. I was able to delete the post because no one posted on it yet.<br /><br />Here is what I posted. <br /><br />There appears to be a cloud coming out of Titans upper atmosphere in this image. Not to say this is due to volcanic activity, that would take a lot of energy to reach escape velocity to go above Titans cloaked atmosphere, over 500 kilometers high. Impact from a incoming asteroid, comet or wayward Saturn ring material may also do this.<br /><br />Although this is another world it reminds me how the volcanoes of the Jovian moon Io was discovered. On Io the plume was over 150 Kilometers high on a world with a very tenius atmosphere. They first thought it was not of volcanic origin. They later confirmed that there was material escaping from Io's gravitational field from these volcanic blasts.<br /><br /><br />Very interesting, deserves another look of which I hope there will be plenty of. From the images sent back so far, there appears to be a lot of objects in the Saturian system which could pose a problem for Cassini.<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Ron Bennett </div>

 

[titanian]

It seems that the clouds spotted in the south pole are "permanent" because the Hubble images had identified the same bright area in the south pole long agn Mars, the south pole also appears bright but it is due, in this case, to frozen carbon dioxyde ( or water ice or both).But on Titan, it looks different.Why not the sign of an active volcanism as you suggest, rlb2.<br />A second intriguing feature on the latest image from the Cassini spacecraft is the dark linear shapes ("H").How to interpret?Mountains?a sign of a tectonic activity ( Carolyn Porco's view)?...

 

[aaron38]

What is that tight bright spot in the middle of Titan's unlit area? Any theories from NASA on that?<br />

 

[yurkin]

rlb<br />Where did you get that image? If your image interpretation is accurate this could be a smoking gun for volcanism on Titan. Did you play with the contrast or anything. If somethings that bright in the unlit side it must be very hot.

 

[silylene old]

rlb2: are you absoluetly certain that the white spot and the "volcanoes" are not caused by defects on the imaging lens? Apparently the imaging lenses and filters got quite dirty during the passage through Saturn's ring - there are reports of this today.<br /><br />I think you should compare and map the locations of lens/filter defects by comparing multiple different images for common defects and exclude these defects from consideration. Any curious spots and protuberances which survive this analysis would be more probable and correspondingly more interesting. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><em><font color="#0000ff">- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -</font></em> </div><div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><font color="#0000ff"><em>I really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function.</em></font> </div> </div>

 

[alokmohan]

I hope seas of methane are real and it may lead to life formation.

 

[CalliArcale]

I do know there are donut-shaped artifacts that show up on many of the images of Saturn, even on those taken before the ring plane crossings, due to contamination on the filters and things. So indeed there may be artifacts.<br /><br />I'm really hoping that Titan is geologically active, though. The idea of a Titanian volcano or geyser is very exciting to me! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[aerogi]

This reminds me somehow about the stories of Venus and Mars before they where visited by probes from Earth. Venus was thought (and hoped) to be very similar to earth, with oceans... <br /><br />And the first pictures that where send back from Mars showed it was more like the moon than Earth, although it was just a little unlucky to take pictures from the heavily cratered region... <br /><br />And now we are fantasizing about oceans of methane, vulcanos, etc, while it might be just a 'dead' world. Well let's hope not...

 

[rlb2]

<font color="orange">A second intriguing feature on the latest image from the Cassini spacecraft is the dark linear shapes ("H").How to interpret?Mountains?a sign of a tectonic activity ( Carolyn Porco's view)?... <font color="white"><br /><br />This is what I posted before the “New Beginning” and Cassini entering orbit. <br /></font></font> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Ron Bennett </div>

 

[rlb2]

More erased images. Posted 06-26-04 <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Ron Bennett </div>

 

[rlb2]

<font color="orange">What is that tight bright spot in the middle of Titan's unlit area? Any theories from NASA on that? <font color="white"><br /><br />Don't know but here is an interesting thing to look at.<br /></font></font> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Ron Bennett </div>

 

[rlb2]

<font color="orange">What is that tight bright spot in the middle of Titan's unlit area? Any theories from NASA on that?<font color="white"><br /><br />http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/casJPGFullS02/N00000471.jpg<br /><br />Care must be taken to enlarging it to get the image I posted above.<br /> <br /></font></font> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Ron Bennett </div>

 

[rlb2]

<font color="orange">rlb2: are you absoluetly certain that the white spot and the "volcanoes" are not caused by defects on the imaging lens? Apparently the imaging lenses and filters got quite dirty during the passage through Saturn's ring - there are reports of this today. <font color="white"><br /><br />Where are the spectrograph readings of Titan's surface temperatures? Remember there is a cloud of gas floating around Saturn at Titans location. Where is that coming from? Io is spewing gas and volcanic material off its surface with enough kinetic energy to escape its gravitational field, some of it has been spotted on Europa. As I stated for over the last 15 years, I disagreed with there original assumptions of liquid oceans of methane on Titan because I believed that it had more of a dynamic atmosphere and the surface temperatures may vary over 100 C. This isn’t as cold as they thought to provide a environment for liquid methane. The only place that liquid oceans of methane could be on Titan I claimed was at its poles.<br /><br />Here is what I extracted out to show you where some of the blotches were, circled, on one of the filters. The known blotches I looked at weren’t visible at the center of the image, where Titan was located. I doubled checked that out before I released the first image I posted here. Don't know if anything is for certain but as I said before this is exactly how the volcanoes on IO were discovered although, it takes seeing it more than once to confirm it. <br /></font></font> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Ron Bennett </div>

 

[volcanopele2]

"<br />http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/casJPGFullS02/N00000471.jpg<br /><br />Care must be taken to enlarging it to get the image I posted above."<br /><br />Both of those are noise hits. we get those all the time.

 

[yurkin]

<font color="orange">"Both of those are noise hits. we get those all the time."</font><br /><br />sigh* The noise hit right on the edge of the planet looked so much like the voyager picture of Io. But personally I still believe volcanoes are unlikely. If you look at this picture of Titan, it seems to show a large crater. Now a crater of this size must have come form the period of early bombardment. If its still there now and hasn’t been covered up by lava flows then its doubtful that there ever have been lava flows.<br />

 

[rlb2]

Keep looking. <br /><br />That’s exactly what was said about the original Io volcanic discoveries, don't forget it also could be a distant star. That was also ruled out later when more eruptions were discovered. We will soon see my friend, after we get more looks. Lots of possibilities. <br /><br />Cassini will finally unwrap the mythology. <br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Ron Bennett </div>

 

[volcanopele2]

If you look throughout that image you see noise hits that aren't just single pixel noise like I have seen at Io, but multi-pixel noise hits.<br /><br />But there are a number of reasons why that can't be real. First, where is the light source since that is near the limb on the night side. Secondly, I see it in no other images in that observation set, even those taken at the same filter. Thirdly, similar noise hits are seen elsewhere in the image not near Titan.

 

[volcanopele2]

Actually, images of that feature taken by ISS does indicate modification (heavy...modification) particularly near the southern end of that circular dark albedo feature.<br /><br />I am hoping to see volcanism on Titan. My other target of interest is Io and if I can avoid cratered worlds in my career, I will be VERY happy. However, I am very sceptical that the bright spot pointed out above is evidence for a plume.

 

[volcanopele2]

Here is a view by ISS of the circular feature

 

[rlb2]

<font color="orange">But there are a number of reasons why that can't be real. First, where is the light source since that is near the limb on the night side.<font color="white"><br /><br />There could be numerous reasons for the light source. Another reason might be Saturns charged particles in its magnetosphere interacting with Titans atmosphere. <br /><br />The one that would support Volcanoes would be electrical storms, lightening, around major eruptions. I witnessed this first hand living in the northwest and being lucky enough to be just south of Cougar Washington, closest town to Mt St. Hellens when it erupted. If I were on the other side I would have been blown away. I filmed the initial eruption on super eight movies and gave it to USGS, no VHS tapes back in those days. A flashing light, lightening, could be the cause of seeing this light in one image. As I recall there have been observations of flashing lights on Titan. Erupting volcanoes with an ash cloud would easily provide the conduit for lightening storms, a lot of charged particles. <br /><br />It wouldn’t take much heat to get the gas in the upper atmosphere to suddenly gain enough kinetic energy to escape Titans gravitational well. Its only because the upper atmosphere of Titans is so cold because of its distance from the sun that the gas hangs around anyway. <br /><br />If Titan was the same distance from the sun as Mars is it probably wouldn’t have any atmosphere because it would be to warm for the gas to hang around, not strong enough gravitational field to retain it. <br /></font></font> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Ron Bennett </div>

 

[volcanopele2]

I'll concede that but the fact remains that it doesn't appear in anyother images in that set.

 

[rlb2]

Is more than one image taken at the exact time? Lightening flashes are there for only a split second, therefore if the image isn't taken at almost the exact time then it may not appear in the same image set. Lightening flash might have illuminated the escaping gas cloud for a split second. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Ron Bennett </div>