• Titan's many similarities to Earth is why astrobiologists are so fascinated by this unusual moon. (space.com)
  • Titan's atmosphere is a natural laboratory that, in many aspects, seems to have a strong similitude with our current picture of the pre-biotic atmosphere of Earth. (space.com)
  • They looked at data recorded by the Cassini-Huygens probe to better understand the isotopic ratios in Titan's dense, hazy atmosphere . (space.com)
  • methane abundances in Titan's atmosphere were ten times higher, and the surface pressure was at least double what he had predicted. (wikipedia.org)
  • The high surface pressure meant that methane could only form a small fraction of Titan's atmosphere. (wikipedia.org)
  • In 1980, Voyager 1 made the first detailed observations of Titan's atmosphere, revealing that its surface pressure was higher than Earth's, at 1.5 bars (about 1.48 times that of Earth's). (wikipedia.org)
  • It was determined that Titan's atmospheric isotopic abundances were evidence that the abundant nitrogen in the atmosphere came from materials in the Oort cloud, associated with comets, and not from the materials that formed Saturn in earlier times. (wikipedia.org)
  • Titan's atmosphere is about 1.19 times as massive as Earth's overall, or about 7.3 times more massive on a per surface area basis. (wikipedia.org)
  • However, Titan's lower surface gravity creates a more extended atmosphere, with scale heights of 15-50 km (9-31 mi) in comparison to 5-8 km (3.1-5 mi) on Earth. (wikipedia.org)
  • Since methane condenses out of Titan's atmosphere at high altitudes, its abundance increases below the tropopause at an altitude of 32 km (20 mi), leveling off at a value of 4.9% between 8 km (5 mi) and the surface. (wikipedia.org)
  • Cassini swept within 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) of Titan's surface on Monday, and took a close look at the icy moon Dione just one day later. (sciencedaily.com)
  • During the flyby, Cassini captured a stunning view of Titan's night side with the atmosphere shimmering in its own glow. (sciencedaily.com)
  • Images from Cassini's cameras show regions on Titan that had not been seen clearly before, as well as fine details in Titan's intermittent clouds. (sciencedaily.com)
  • Titan's atmosphere is made mostly of nitrogen, like Earth's, but with a surface pressure 50 percent higher than Earth's. (nasa.gov)
  • NASA's Cassini spacecraft looks toward the night side of Saturn's largest moon and sees sunlight scattering through the periphery of Titan's atmosphere and forming a ring of color. (nasa.gov)
  • This natural color image shows Titan's upper atmosphere-an active place where methane molecules are being broken apart by solar ultraviolet light and the byproducts combine to form compounds like ethane and acetylene. (nasa.gov)
  • Titan's nitrogen atmosphere is so dense that a human wouldn't need a pressure suit to walk around on the surface. (nasa.gov)
  • Titan's dense atmosphere, as well as gravity roughly equivalent to Earth's Moon, mean that a raindrop falling through Titan's sky would fall more slowly than on Earth. (nasa.gov)
  • Titan was famously featured in the 2009 film "Star Trek"-the U.S.S. Enterprise comes out of warp in Titan's atmosphere in order to sneak up on the Romulan ship attacking Earth. (nasa.gov)
  • It also measured Titan's atmosphere. (windows2universe.org)
  • These off-pole locations are unexpected because the fast-moving winds in Titan's middle atmosphere move in an east-west direction, forming zones similar to Jupiter's bands, though much less pronounced. (universetoday.com)
  • The Sun and Saturn's magnetic field deliver light and energized particles to Titan's atmosphere. (universetoday.com)
  • Spring is finally giving way to summer in in Titan's northern hemisphere for the first time since Cassini arrived at Saturn in 2004. (space.com)
  • The discovery of the fog clinches the case that methane cycles between Titan's atmosphere and surface, just as water does on Earth, researchers say. (sciencenews.org)
  • Astronomy.com Titan's thick, cloudy atmosphere hides a weird world of methane lakes and seas. (astronomy.com)
  • Left: Image using F212N, a 2.12-micron filter sensitive to Titan's lower atmosphere. (phys.org)
  • Here, Principal Investigator Conor Nixon and others on the Guaranteed Time Observation (GTO) program 1251 team using Webb to investigate Titan's atmosphere and climate describe their initial reactions to seeing the data. (phys.org)
  • We had waited for years to use Webb's infrared vision to study Titan's atmosphere, including its fascinating weather patterns and gaseous composition, and also see through the haze to study albedo features (bright and dark patches) on the surface. (phys.org)
  • Titan's atmosphere is incredibly interesting, not only due to its methane clouds and storms, but also because of what it can tell us about Titan's past and future-including whether it always had an atmosphere. (phys.org)
  • We then realized it was important to find out if the clouds were moving or changing shape, which might reveal information about the air flow in Titan's atmosphere. (phys.org)
  • Scientists had predicted, but had no confirmation until now, that pools of liquid were contributing to the high concentration of methane and other hydrocarbons in Titan's atmosphere. (spacearchive.info)
  • Titan's thick atmosphere is full of complex organic compounds, which give it a distinct orange colour. (newscientist.com)
  • Solar radiation is the main cause of these cycles and is the dominant energy source for Titan's atmosphere. (scitechdaily.com)
  • The discovery suggests that the atmosphere of Titan's southern hemisphere is cooling much faster than we expected," said Remco de Kok of Leiden Observatory and SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, lead author of the study published today in the journal Nature. (scienceblog.com)
  • Keen to understand what could give rise to this mysterious cloud, the scientists dove into Cassini's observations and found an important clue in the spectrum of sunlight reflected by Titan's atmosphere. (scienceblog.com)
  • Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIMS) maps the distribution of chemical compounds in Titan's atmosphere and on its surface. (scienceblog.com)
  • The light coming from the polar vortex showed a remarkable difference with respect to other portions of Titan's atmosphere," says de Kok. (scienceblog.com)
  • This is about 200 degrees Fahrenheit (about 100 degrees Celsius) colder than predictions from current theoretical models of Titan's upper atmosphere. (scienceblog.com)
  • Scientists "stretched" image contrast to reveal details washed out by Titan's hazy atmosphere. (astronomy.com)
  • Titan's hazy atmosphere diffuses and reddens the feeble sunlight reaching the distant moon's surface. (astronomy.com)
  • The Sun casts sharp but low-contrast shadows because 90 percent of Titan's surface illumination comes from its atmosphere. (astronomy.com)
  • 297 F). Along with nitrogen, Titan's atmosphere contains a significant amount of methane. (scienceblog.com)
  • What an interesting thing Titan's atmosphere turns out to be. (centauri-dreams.org)
  • However, we find no evidence that Titan is geologically active, consistent with Titan's long-wave topography and gravity field, which indicate a thick ice shell that is conductive rather than convective. (centauri-dreams.org)
  • Measurements of the 13 C/ 12 C ratio in Titan's atmosphere indicate that methane was injected into the atmosphere not more than 0.5-1 billion years ago. (centauri-dreams.org)
  • While most of the liquid in the lakes is thought to be replenished by rainfall from clouds in the moon's atmosphere, the cycling of liquid throughout Titan's crust and atmosphere. (esa.int)
  • In the same press release, Matthew Abplanalp, a co-author of the study, said "unraveling the origin and chemical pathways to form this organic dune material is vital not only to understand Titan's chemical evolution, but also to grasp how alike the chemistries on Titan and on Earth might have been like before life emerged on Earth 3.5 million years ago. (gizmodo.com)
  • Cryominerals such as co-crystals may influence the geologic processes and chemical composition of Titan's surface, which in turn informs our understanding of how Titan may have evolved, how the surface is continuing to change, and the extent of Titan's habitability. (bvsalud.org)
  • Our work here demonstrates that the pyridine:acetylene co-crystal is stable from 90 K, Titan's average surface temperature, up to 180 K under an atmosphere of N2. (bvsalud.org)
  • The joint NASA/ESA Cassini-Huygens mission provided a wealth of information about Titan, and the Saturn system in general, since entering orbit on July 1, 2004. (wikipedia.org)
  • Other Cassini results presented at the meeting included observations made by the ultraviolet imaging spectrograph instrument, which indicates that the nearby environment of the rings and moons in the Saturn system is filled with ice, and atoms derived from water. (sciencedaily.com)
  • Cassini researchers are seeing large changes in the amount of oxygen atoms in the Saturn system. (sciencedaily.com)
  • A giant of a moon appears before a giant of a planet undergoing seasonal changes in this natural color view of Titan and Saturn from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. (nasa.gov)
  • NASA's Cassini spacecraft sees bright methane clouds drifting in the summer skies of Saturn's moon Titan, along with dark hydrocarbon lakes and seas clustered around the north pole. (nasa.gov)
  • This picture shows what Cassini might look like near Saturn. (windows2universe.org)
  • Cassini is moving fast because it had a long way to travel to get to Saturn . (windows2universe.org)
  • Cassini will study Saturn, Saturn's rings , and Saturn's moons . (windows2universe.org)
  • Cassini will fly very close to Saturn when it fires its engine and slows down. (windows2universe.org)
  • It will be the closest Cassini ever gets to Saturn. (windows2universe.org)
  • Cassini is studying the planet Saturn. (windows2universe.org)
  • Cassini is on its way to Saturn. (windows2universe.org)
  • It will take the Cassini spacecraft over 6 years to get to Saturn. (windows2universe.org)
  • A spacecraft named Cassini is orbiting around the planet Saturn right now. (windows2universe.org)
  • The Cassini spaceship flew by Titan on October 26, 2004. (windows2universe.org)
  • Cassini took some great pictures of Titan - the best ever! (windows2universe.org)
  • The Cassini/Huygens spacecraft at the Saturn system has been revealing the oddities of Titan to us, with its lakes and rain clouds of methane, and an atmosphere thicker than Earth's. (universetoday.com)
  • As of March 6, 2014, Cassini has flown by Titan, Saturn's largest moon, 100 times since the probe's arrival around the planet in 2004. (space.com)
  • The Cassini spacecraft made its closest approach to the hazy moon Titan at 12:45 p.m. (space.com)
  • NASA's Cassini spacecraft exploring Saturn and its moon has reached a major milestone, the 100th flyby of Titan, largest Saturnian moon. (space.com)
  • Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at JPL, said the potential for like on Titan is twofold because of its two types of liquid bodies. (space.com)
  • NASA's ever-resourceful Cassini probe found steep-sided canyons on Saturn's moon Titan. (zmescience.com)
  • The enduring Cassini spacecraft returns with new insight into the hydrocarbon seas from Saturn's moon Titan. (zmescience.com)
  • Cassini has been getting up close to Saturn's planet-sized moon, Titan. (huffingtonpost.co.uk)
  • Just like our home planet, Saturn has powerful magnetic fields at its poles that create shimmering auroras, and for the first time Cassini was able to capture these incredible (and pretty intimidating) images of the glowing-pink Southern lights. (huffingtonpost.co.uk)
  • Cassini had one last chance to search for signs of bubbles or some other explanation for the island when it flew by Titan a final time on April 22 ( SN Online: 4/21/17 ). (sciencenews.org)
  • Both of Saturn's F-ring shepherd moons are seen in this Cassini spacecraft view, which also features narrow ringlets in the Encke gap at left. (nasa.gov)
  • From on high, the Cassini spacecraft spies a group of three ring moons in their travels around Saturn. (nasa.gov)
  • Tethys Magnified October 6, 2004 Full-Res: PIA06492 Cassini sighted the far-off icy moon Tethys as it headed back toward Saturn in. (nasa.gov)
  • Prometheus and Epimetheus, brothers in Greek mythology, share the stage in this Cassini spacecraft image of the two moons near the outer A ring and faint F ring. (nasa.gov)
  • From the dark side of Titan, the Cassini spacecraft profiles the moon's atmosphere as sunlight filters through its upper hazes. (nasa.gov)
  • NASA's Cassini spacecraft has found lakes on Saturn's moon Titan. (spacearchive.info)
  • Finding the source of the complex soup of hydrocarbons in Titan s atmosphere has been a major goal for the Cassini mission and is a significant accomplishment. (spacearchive.info)
  • This area of Titan has been in winter's shadow since before Cassini arrived, and the spacecraft had not flown over it before. (spacearchive.info)
  • It was almost as though someone laid a bull's-eye around the whole north pole of Titan, and Cassini sees these regions of lakes just like those we see on Earth," said Larry Soderblom, Cassini interdisciplinary scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey, Flagstaff, Ariz. "Titan has turned out to be like a musical crescendo -- each pass is more exciting than the last. (spacearchive.info)
  • http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . (spacearchive.info)
  • Using spectrometer data from the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn, they combined a mixture of hydrocarbons and nitriles that are representative of what might be found on Titan. (scientificamerican.com)
  • Scientists analyzing data from NASA's Cassini mission have discovered that a giant, toxic cloud is hovering over the south pole of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, after the atmosphere there cooled dramatically. (scienceblog.com)
  • This caused it's discoverer Cassini to remark that Iapetus could only be seen when on one side of Saturn but not the other. (astronet.ru)
  • The international Cassini mission has revealed that a giant, toxic cloud is hovering over the south pole of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, after the atmosphere has cooled in a dramatic fashion. (esa.int)
  • The international Cassini mission has revealed hundreds of hydrocarbon lakes and seas spread across the icy surface of Saturn's moon Titan, mostly in its polar regions. (esa.int)
  • This mosaic of images recorded by the Cassini spacecraft in May of 2012 shows its anti-Saturn side, the side always facing away from the ringed gas giant. (nasa.gov)
  • Its high altitude layer of atmospheric haze is evident in the Cassini view of the 5,000 kilometer diameter moon over Saturn's rings and cloud tops. (nasa.gov)
  • Several of the icy moons that hang around Jupiter and Saturn might have underground oceans that could sustain life. (technologyreview.com)
  • Pioneer 10 and 11 served, to a large extent, as test platforms for outer solar system exploration, visiting Jupiter and Saturn. (discovermagazine.com)
  • Even the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn have far more liquid water than Earth. (universetoday.com)
  • Much better are the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn, which we know have liquid water. (universetoday.com)
  • This allows scientists to study the detached haze layers, which extend some 400 kilometers (249 miles) above Titan. (sciencedaily.com)
  • While Earth rain falls at about 20 miles per hour (9.2 meters per second), scientists have calculated that rain on Titan falls at about 3.5 miles per hour (1.6 meters per second), or about six times more slowly than Earth's rain. (nasa.gov)
  • For 10 years, Cassini's images have helped scientists peer beneath the moon's orange, nitrogen-rich smog to see amazing features on the face of Titan like vast lakes made of methane and ethane that are larger than North America's Great Lakes and continually replenished by hydrocarbon rain showers. (space.com)
  • Because Titan harbors water and organic materials, scientists think it could be a potential host of alien life forms. (space.com)
  • Methane fog hovering above Saturn's moon Titan has cleared away any doubt that the hydrocarbon cycles between the moon's surface and its atmosphere, planetary scientists say. (sciencenews.org)
  • Scientists want to know "how come Titan is the only one that has a big atmosphere? (windows2universe.org)
  • Saturn's main moon, Titan, has a "magic island" that might be made of streams of nitrogen bubbles , scientists report April 18 in Nature Astronomy . (sciencenews.org)
  • Scientists have run this earthshine through a spectrometer and found "biosignatures" from our atmosphere and plants. (listverse.com)
  • Scientists still debate whether the interior of Titan is hot and, if so, whether water mixed with ammonia (which would preserve liquid at much lower temperatures) lurks there, with all the juicy implications for subsurface life. (astronomy.com)
  • Methane lakes, a methane cycle, lots of organic compounds lying around … it's no wonder a lot of scientists take the idea of exobiology seriously on Titan. (syfy.com)
  • On the morning of Saturday, Nov. 5, an international team of planetary scientists woke up with great delight to the first Webb images of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. (phys.org)
  • To study the stratosphere of WASP-121b, scientists analyzed how different molecules in the atmosphere react to particular wavelengths of light, using Hubble's capabilities for spectroscopy. (astronomynow.com)
  • Pioneer 11's images of Saturn's moon Titan piqued the interest of many scientists, given its intriguing atmosphere. (discovermagazine.com)
  • There was some time pressure to undertake such a mission - thanks to its highly eccentric orbit and its position along it, planetary scientists were concerned that Pluto's atmosphere would "freeze out" and snow down to the surface as it moved away from the sun, possibly as early as 2010. (discovermagazine.com)
  • In terms of climate, meteorology and astrobiology, the conditions on Titan provide scientists with a great opportunity to study conditions similar to our own planet, while at the same time remaining a paradise for exploring new geological, atmospheric, and internal processes. (scitechdaily.com)
  • Based on the settling of sediments from the atmosphere, scientists expect the surface of Titan to be an ice bedrock coated with organic materials. (centauri-dreams.org)
  • A team of scientists using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have made the most detailed map ever of the temperature of an exoplanet's atmosphere, and traced the amount of water it contains. (esa.int)
  • This artist's concept shows similar lakes of ethane thought to exist on Saturn's moon Titan. (space.com)
  • Besides having been detected in the Martian atmosphere, methane is known or suspected to exist on Saturn's moon Titan, Jupiter and other worlds. (abc.net.au)
  • The Dragonfly mission by NASA is planning to land a large aerial vehicle on Titan in 2034. (wikipedia.org)
  • A far-flung NASA space probe flying around Saturn zipped past the ringed planet's biggest moon for the 100th time on Thursday (March 6). (space.com)
  • But you don't want to get too close, as NASA found the eye of hurricanes on Saturn are 50 times wider than those on Earth. (huffingtonpost.co.uk)
  • Researchers at NASA recently announced that they had experimentally recreated the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan in the lab. (scientificamerican.com)
  • Webb and Keck Telescopes Team for Unprecedented Look at Saturn's Moon Titan - "Simply Extraordinary! (scitechdaily.com)
  • It is the only thick atmosphere of a natural satellite in the Solar System. (wikipedia.org)
  • The atmosphere is so thick and the gravity so low that humans could fly through it by flapping "wings" attached to their arms. (wikipedia.org)
  • It is the only moon with a thick atmosphere. (nasa.gov)
  • Saturn's giant moon Titan, the second biggest in the solar system, remained for years an enigma because of its impenetrably thick, cloudy atmosphere. (astronomy.com)
  • Its thick opaque atmosphere, unsuspected until the 20th century, exaggerated its dimensions like a bird puffing out its feathers. (astronomy.com)
  • It has a thick atmosphere of nitrogen, with a surface pressure half again as much as Earth at sea level. (syfy.com)
  • Its atmosphere is filled with thick haze that obscures visible light reflecting off the surface. (phys.org)
  • It's got a thick atmosphere and not a lot of gravity. (kunc.org)
  • Titan is Saturn's largest moon, larger than the planet Mercury, and is the only moon in our solar system with a thick atmosphere. (scienceblog.com)
  • Titan is unique, with a landscape made of mountains of ice, carved by liquid methane that rains down from the thick atmosphere forming rivers and lakes. (king5.com)
  • Thanks to our trusty magnetosphere, Earth's surface is protected from this type of radiation, but the same can't be said for Titan, which can only rely on its thick atmosphere to absorb the incoming radiation. (gizmodo.com)
  • These renewal events are from fragments of small moons, each probably about 20 kilometers (12 miles) across. (sciencedaily.com)
  • But at more than 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) across, Titan is still larger than Mercury, dwarfs our Moon by 50 percent, and is twice the size of the demoted ex-planet Pluto. (astronomy.com)
  • It's really odd to think of a moon having weather, especially one well over a billion kilometers from the Sun, where the temperature would nearly liquefy the oxygen out of our own air. (syfy.com)
  • This detail of a Huygens panoramic view combines descent images taken from 13.7 and 5.6 miles (22 and 9 kilometers) above Titan. (astronomy.com)
  • The research paper, "Clues on the importance of comets in the origin and evolution of the atmospheres of Titan," by Trigo-Rodriguez and F. Javier Martin-Torres (Center for Astrobiology, Madrid, Spain), recently published in the journal Planetary and Space Science, offers insight into the atmospheric affinities of Earth and Titan. (space.com)
  • According to Chris McKay, a planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center, comets may have made small contributions to the water, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen content of the Earth's early atmosphere, "but they were not the main source. (space.com)
  • We are interested in Titan because it is the most Earth-like of the planetary bodies possessing an atmosphere of mostly nitrogen and methane," said co-author Rebecca Auchettl (pictured above), a PhD candidate who was supervised by Dr Courtney Ennis, formerly of La Trobe University now at the University of Otago in New Zealand. (lightsources.org)
  • Titan is the only moon in the solar system with a dense atmosphere , and it is also the only planetary body other than Earth that currently has rivers, lakes, and seas. (phys.org)
  • It was to answer that question that Caitlin Griffith (University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory) and colleagues embarked on a study of cryovolcano activity on Titan. (centauri-dreams.org)
  • Planetary Atmospheres. (pearson.com)
  • On a reasonably clear evening, Jupiter's cloud banding becomes starkly visible, as do all four of its major Galilean moons. (telescope.com)
  • Mimas is one of the icy moons , similar to the Galilean satellites . (windows2universe.org)
  • These moons are called Galilean because they were discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610. (windows2universe.org)
  • Jupiter, the solar system's largest planet, is seen here next to Io, its closest Galilean moon. (astronet.ru)
  • This image, obtained using Cassini's Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS), shows the first observed flash of sunlight reflected off a lake on Saturn's moon Titan. (space.com)
  • This image shows the first flash of sunlight reflected off a hydrocarbon lake on Saturn's moon Titan. (nasa.gov)
  • Hydrocarbon lake on Saturn's moon Titan. (scitechdaily.com)
  • A new mystery of Titan has been uncovered by astronomers using their latest asset in the high altitude desert of Chile. (universetoday.com)
  • Using the now fully deployed Atacama Large Millimeter Array ( ALMA ) telescope in Chile, astronomers moved from observing comets to Titan. (universetoday.com)
  • The ALMA astronomers called it a "brief 3 minute snapshot of Titan. (universetoday.com)
  • With Titan and Earth, astronomers will have points of comparison to determine what is happening on distant exo-planets, whether it's life or not. (universetoday.com)
  • Astronomers have made a puzzling observation which could have big implications for our understanding of Titan. (zmescience.com)
  • Astronomers have discovered a previously unspotted geological feature on Saturn's moon, Titan. (zmescience.com)
  • For 300 years, astronomers regarded Titan as the solar system's largest satellite, and for an interesting reason. (astronomy.com)
  • This is the first planet outside our solar system where astronomers have found the strongest evidence yet for a stratosphere - a layer of atmosphere in which temperature increases with higher altitudes. (astronomynow.com)
  • When astronomers search for life outside of our solar system , they look right past the gas giants like Saturn and Jupiter, past the torrid, rocky planets like Mercury and Venus, and past the dwarf planets like Pluto. (howstuffworks.com)
  • Astronomers have been researching Saturn 's moon Titan for roughly 30 years, discovering that the moon experiences seasonal changes that affect it more than previously thought. (scitechdaily.com)
  • Astronomers have made breakthroughs in studying the TRAPPIST-1 exoplanetary system, emphasizing the role of stellar contamination and exploring the potential atmospheres of TRAPPIST-1 b. (scitechdaily.com)
  • Teams of astronomers at the California Institute of Technology and the University of California at Berkeley have discovered methane clouds near the south pole of Titan. (scienceblog.com)
  • Cassini's second close flyby of Titan completes a 'before' and 'after' look at the fuzzy moon and provides the first direct evidence of changing weather patterns in the skies over Titan. (sciencedaily.com)
  • In images taken Monday, Dec. 13, during Cassini's second close flyby of Titan, several extensive patches of clouds have formed. (sciencedaily.com)
  • Cassini's next flyby of Titan is on September 7. (spacearchive.info)
  • This Titan flyby, however, took Voyager 1 below the south pole of Saturn and then north of the ecliptic (the plane of the solar system, which contains the planets - and famously, not Pluto - as they orbit the sun). (discovermagazine.com)
  • And of all the places in the solar system, Titan is the only place besides Earth known to have liquids in the form of rivers, lakes and seas on its surface. (nasa.gov)
  • Titan has clouds, rain, rivers, lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbons like methane and ethane. (nasa.gov)
  • Titan also has large lakes, but these contain about a third of the necessary methane, available through evaporation, to replenish that atmosphere, which should be depleted over geological time scales. (centauri-dreams.org)
  • It was determined that complex organic chemicals could arise on Titan, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, propylene, and methane. (wikipedia.org)
  • Any future search for living organisms should be only from Titan because of rich hydrocarbons in its atmosphere.Thank You. (scitechdaily.com)
  • Views of the planets and Moon through the f/10 AstroView 90 telescope are nothing short of spectacular. (telescope.com)
  • Additionally, the new observations add to understanding Titan - a second data point (after Earth) for understanding organics of exo-planets, which may number in the hundreds of billions beyond our solar system within our Milky Way galaxy. (universetoday.com)
  • Titan formed the same way other planets did, as shown in this picture. (windows2universe.org)
  • The other planets were gas giants, and life on those worlds or their satellite moons was basically inconceivable. (technologyreview.com)
  • They could study things up close, maybe fly into the atmosphere or land on the surface, and perhaps one day even bring back samples that could reveal whether these planets and moons are home to materials or fossils that are evidence of life-or perhaps life itself. (technologyreview.com)
  • In images obtained less than two months ago, the Titan skies were cloud free, except for a patch of clouds observed over the moon's south pole. (sciencedaily.com)
  • On Titan, methane can form clouds and is likely to produce rain. (sciencenews.org)
  • Saturn shows white feathery clouds near 45 degrees south latitude. (esa.int)
  • Saturn's serene appearance belies the roiling atmosphere beneath the clouds that is producing features such as cyclones. (nasa.gov)
  • These clouds may mark the return of normal weather on the ridiculously huge moon. (syfy.com)
  • Evolution of clouds on Titan over 30 hours between Nov. 4 and Nov. 6, 2022, as seen by Webb NIRCam (left) and Keck NIRC-2 (right). (phys.org)
  • Clouds are not long-lasting on Titan or Earth, so those seen on Nov. 4 may not be the same as those seen on Nov. 6. (phys.org)
  • Evolution of clouds on Titan over 30 hours between Nov. 4 and Nov. 6, as seen by near-infrared cameras on the James Webb Space Telescope (top) and Keck Telescope. (phys.org)
  • Saturn's clouds are composed of primarily hydrogen and helium, but the storm's white clouds are actually ammonia ice crystals that have frozen upon upheaval to the top of the atmosphere. (astronet.ru)
  • Earlier spectroscopic observations had hinted at the existence of clouds on Titan, but gave no clue as to their location. (scienceblog.com)
  • Titan, the mysterious cloud-covered moon of Saturn, is the ringed planet's largest moon. (space.com)
  • The top of the planet's atmosphere is heated to a blazing 4,600 degrees Fahrenheit (2,500 degrees Celsius), hot enough to boil iron. (astronomynow.com)
  • Water vapor in the planet's atmosphere, for example, behaves in predictable ways in response to certain wavelengths of light, depending on the temperature of the water. (astronomynow.com)
  • Starlight is able to penetrate deep into a planet's atmosphere, where it raises the temperature of the gas there. (astronomynow.com)
  • Now, thanks to two microphones aboard the Perseverance rover, researchers can tune in from more than a million miles away to probe the Red Planet's alien atmosphere and unique sound propagation patterns. (discovermagazine.com)
  • The atmosphere of Titan is the dense layer of gases surrounding Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. (wikipedia.org)
  • Titan has not yielded its secrets easily because the dense smoggy atmosphere makes it very difficult to obtain good visible images. (spacearchive.info)
  • Titan is the only moon in the solar system that is cloaked in a dense atmosphere. (scienceblog.com)
  • But this is tricky work, with weaker spectral features difficult to tease out because of the moon's dense atmosphere. (centauri-dreams.org)
  • The only moon in the solar system with a dense atmosphere, Titan is the only solar system world besides Earth known to have standing bodies of liquid on its surface and an earthlike cycle of liquid rain and evaporation. (nasa.gov)
  • This result is exciting because it shows that a common trait of most of the atmospheres in our solar system - a warm stratosphere - also can be found in exoplanet atmospheres," said Mark Marley, study co-author based at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley. (astronomynow.com)
  • We can now compare processes in exoplanet atmospheres with the same processes that happen under different sets of conditions in our own solar system. (astronomynow.com)
  • Trigo-Rodriguez and Martin Torres studied how hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen isotopes reacted with their environments on Earth and Titan. (space.com)
  • Outgassing and collisional processing on both worlds led to the production of molecular nitrogen-dominated atmospheres with similar isotopic ratios of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen. (space.com)
  • High in the atmosphere of Titan, large patches of two trace gases glow near the north pole, on the dusk side of the moon, and near the south pole, on the dawn side. (universetoday.com)
  • Those data showed that the southern hemisphere of Titan has been cooling rapidly, making it possible to reach the cold temperature needed to form the giant toxic cloud seen on the south pole. (scienceblog.com)
  • It's one of only five moons in the solar system known to be geologically active, as evidenced by its active geysers that spew sublimated nitrogen gas. (technologyreview.com)
  • Potentially the topography that established the steep slopes of the icy corridor is a remnant of the time when Titan was geologically active. (centauri-dreams.org)
  • In contrast to other worlds such as the moon and Mars, Earth's interior remains geologically active. (palaeos.com)
  • We've found them on Mars, Venus, and Saturn's moon Titan. (extremetech.com)
  • Venus and the Moon rise above a mountain. (nasa.gov)
  • a) Calculate the density of the atmosphere at the surface of Mars (where the pressure is 650 Pa and the temperature is typically 253 K, with a CO2 atmosphere), Venus (with an average temperature of 730 K and pressure of 92 atm, with a CO2 atmosphere), and Saturn's moon Titan (where the pressure is 1.5 atm and the temperature is -178°C, with a N2 atmosphere). (pearson.com)
  • Jupiter's moon Ganymede is just a little bit larger (by about 2 percent). (nasa.gov)
  • Nowadays, Saturn's largest moon is number two overall, bested only by Jupiter's Ganymede. (astronomy.com)
  • On the cloud tops of Jupiter near the left edge of the picture can be seen a dark circular spot which is caused by the shadow of Jupiter's largest moon Ganymede. (astronet.ru)
  • Trigo-Rodriguez and Martin-Torres believe the vital organic ingredients in the early Earth's atmosphere were vaporized and swept away by solar winds. (space.com)
  • A single 3 minute observation revealed organic molecules that are askew in the atmosphere of Titan. (universetoday.com)
  • They found zones of organic molecules offset from the Titan polar regions. (universetoday.com)
  • The methane seas on Saturn's largest moon are remarkably calm, and it might be because of a thin floating layer of organic gunk. (newscientist.com)
  • Physical chemist Ralf Kaiser from the University of Hawaii and his colleagues conducted an experiment to see if frozen acetylene-a chemical compound used in welding-could be converted into complex organic molecules like the ones seen on Titan, specifically benzene and naphthalene. (gizmodo.com)
  • Titan, Saturn's largest moon, has a plethora of organic compounds in the atmosphere and on the surface that interact with each other. (bvsalud.org)
  • The most recently reported research using the beamline published in Earth and Space Chemistry, involved recreating the pressure and temperatures environments in the hazy atmosphere surrounding Saturn's moon Titan. (lightsources.org)
  • The latest data and other results from Cassini's close observations of Saturn's moons Titan and Dione were presented today at a news conference during the American Geophysical Union fall meeting in San Francisco. (sciencedaily.com)
  • Cassini's final mission has required getting closer to Saturn than ever before, dropping from a normal altitude of 1,000,000km above to just 120,000km. (huffingtonpost.co.uk)
  • Hear about what we know about Titan topics that were investigated early in Cassini's mission. (nasa.gov)
  • Observations from the Voyager space probes have shown that the Titanean atmosphere is denser than Earth's, with a surface pressure about 1.48 times that of Earth's. (wikipedia.org)
  • The first observations with ALMA of Titan have added to the Saturn moon's list of mysteries. (universetoday.com)
  • But the new observations by ALMA of Titan underscore how much more can be learned about Titan and also how incredible the ALMA array is. (universetoday.com)
  • ALMA's first observations of the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan. (universetoday.com)
  • Instead, Impey expects that NASA's James Webb Space Telescope - or one of the giant Earth-based telescopes that's gearing up for observations - will detect the spectroscopic signature of biological activity in the atmosphere of a planet that's light-years away from us. (universetoday.com)
  • What rocky moon has a nitrogen-rich atmosphere, Earth-like weather patterns and geology, liquid hydrocarbon seas and a relatively good chance to support life? (space.com)
  • Titan provides an extraordinary environment to better understand some of the chemical processes that led to the appearance of life on Earth," said Josep M. Trigo-Rodriguez, of the Institute of Space Sciences (CSIC-IEEC) in Barcelona, Spain. (space.com)
  • This is remarkable, because it was thought that Earth and Titan were made from a vastly different recipe of materials in drastically different temperatures, Trigo-Rodriguez said. (space.com)
  • Earth presumably formed from scorched, oxygen-poor rocks (planetesimals) located in the inner solar system, while Titan formed from rocks that were rich in oxygen and other volatile chemicals (cometesimals) in the outer solar system. (space.com)
  • Even so, both Earth and Titan were hit by similar water-rich bodies, which provided a volatile-rich source for both atmospheres during the late-heavy bombardment. (space.com)
  • The surface pressure is about 50% higher than on Earth at 1.5 bars (147 kPa) which is near the triple point of methane and allows there to be gaseous methane in the atmosphere and liquid methane on the surface. (wikipedia.org)
  • The maximum diameter of Earth raindrops is about 0.25 inches (6.5 millimeters) while raindrops on Titan can reach diameters of 0.37 inches (9.5 millimeters), or about 50 percent larger than an Earth raindrop. (nasa.gov)
  • Larger than Mercury in size, Titan has some compelling similarities to Earth. (space.com)
  • JPL officials say Titan, where temperatures can drop to minus 290 degrees Fahrenheit (94 kelvins), is like early Earth in a deep freeze. (space.com)
  • Titan is the only solar system body other than Earth known to have large quantities of liquid - in this case methane and ethane - on its surface. (sciencenews.org)
  • Methane acts on Titan the way water does on Earth, notes Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. (sciencenews.org)
  • Titan is a lot like the Earth. (zmescience.com)
  • Our Moon is locked to Earth by gravity, too, and that's why we never see its far side . (listverse.com)
  • The difference is that Earth is much bigger than the Moon, so only the Moon is locked. (listverse.com)
  • But it turns out that the dinosaurs, some 70 million years ago-as well as later Earth life like elephants and horses that first appeared 33 million years ago-probably watched glowing lava flows on the Moon. (listverse.com)
  • First, the atmosphere is only about 1% of the atmosphere on Earth. (kunc.org)
  • ELIZABETH TURTLE: So physically, it's actually easier to fly on Titan than it is on Earth. (kunc.org)
  • Just like Earth, the seasons on Titan change. (scitechdaily.com)
  • Titan is 10.69 AU away from Earth. (scitechdaily.com)
  • Like our home planet, Earth, Titan experiences seasons. (scienceblog.com)
  • As it makes its 29-year orbit around the sun along with Saturn, each season lasts about seven Earth years. (scienceblog.com)
  • This is surprising because more familiar pairings, such as the Earth/moon system, tend to be unequal in size and/or rather close together. (scienceblog.com)
  • Then it will start to orbit Saturn. (windows2universe.org)
  • Saturn's two-toned moon, Lapetus, is surrounded in a cloud of reddish dust that gets swept around in orbit giving it a hellish colour. (huffingtonpost.co.uk)
  • Each season on Titan spans about 7.5 years and it takes 29.5 years for Saturn to orbit Sol, so data has now been gathered for an entire Titan year. (scitechdaily.com)
  • Rhea's rotation and orbit are locked together (just like Earth's Moon) so that one side always faces Saturn. (astronet.ru)
  • Residents from Oregon to Texas may be able to glimpse the annular eclipse, when the moon is deep in its orbit and passes in front of the sun, creating a black circle on the star. (hawaiipublicradio.org)
  • X-ray diffraction (XRD) results indicate moderate anisotropic thermal expansion (about 0.5-1.1%) along the three principal axes between 90-150 K. Additionally, the co-crystal is detectable after being exposed to liquid ethane, implying stability in a residual ethane "wetting" scenario on Titan. (bvsalud.org)
  • The molecules in question should be smoothly distributed across the atmosphere, but they are not. (universetoday.com)
  • However, if there is cooler water vapor at the top of the atmosphere, the water molecules will prevent certain wavelengths of this light from escaping to space. (astronomynow.com)
  • But if the water molecules at the top of the atmosphere have a higher temperature, they will glow at the same wavelengths. (astronomynow.com)
  • The water molecules in the atmosphere of WASP-121b similarly give off radiation as they lose energy, but in the form of infrared light, which the human eye is unable to detect. (astronomynow.com)
  • Like Earth's moon, Saturn's largest moon Titan is locked in synchronous rotation. (nasa.gov)
  • In late 2010, a huge storm swept over the equatorial region of Titan , and for some reason cloud formation has been suppressed since then. (syfy.com)
  • We really didn't expect to see such a massive cloud so high in the atmosphere," said de Kok. (scienceblog.com)
  • Saturn's largest moon, Titan has an earthlike cycle of liquids flowing across its surface. (nasa.gov)
  • Canadian Wilbert B. Smith's, TOP SECRET Memo, , Jacques Vallee Claims UFO Phenomenon Is Real but Maybe Dimensions, Titan Has Atmosphere and Liquids , Breaking the Silence on UFOS: Why Now? (nationalufocenter.com)
  • This titanic story began in 1655 when Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens (HOY-ghens) first realized that the odd "teacup handles" Galileo Galilei thought were affixed to Saturn a few decades earlier were really unattached rings encircling the planet. (astronomy.com)
  • During this period, oxygen- and volatile-rich materials from the outer solar system were hurled en masse towards the inner solar system. (space.com)
  • In 1964, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) scientist Gary Flandro noticed that a so-called "grand tour" of the outer solar system would be possible in the late 1970s given the impending alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. (discovermagazine.com)
  • Despite the 800 million miles between the two worlds, both may have had their atmospheres created through the gravitational layering and processing of asteroids and comets. (space.com)
  • New experimental research found that Saturn's largest Moon, Titan, has much stronger winds than previously believed. (zmescience.com)
  • Icy features in other parts of Titan are found only in local regions exposed by erosion or cratering, which suggests that if cryovolcanism remains an active process on Titan, it is not widespread. (centauri-dreams.org)
  • Earth's atmosphere was originally of an abiotic, reducing kind, such as is still found on Saturn's moon of Titan today. (palaeos.com)
  • This energy causes the formation of complex organics in the Titan atmosphere. (universetoday.com)
  • The press release from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory states, "studying this complex chemistry may provide insights into the properties of Earth's very early atmosphere. (universetoday.com)
  • Complex structure within Saturn 's infrared aurora Publication date: 13 November 2008 Authors: Stallard, T. et al. (esa.int)
  • But the evolution of life and the biosphere has significantly altered the Earth's atmosphere and other abiotic conditions on the planet, creating an oxygen environment that allows evolution of more complex (eukaryote) life, as well as an ozone layer which, together with Earth's magnetic field, screens out harmful solar radiation. (palaeos.com)
  • We look forward to further revelations as we approach summer solstice for the Saturn system in 2017. (scienceblog.com)
  • Can there be Life in the Environment of Titan? (windows2universe.org)
  • Other moons may harbor life or contain evidence about incredibly violent events that have changed the very nature of the solar system. (listverse.com)
  • But in spite of that, it seems to get some heat generated by tidal forces (gravitational friction between Triton and Neptune), and that could help warm up the waters and give rise to life through any organics that might exist on the moon. (technologyreview.com)
  • The atmosphere of Titan is opaque at many wavelengths and a complete reflectance spectrum of the surface is impossible to acquire from the outside. (wikipedia.org)
  • When aimed at our nearest neighbor in space, the Moon, the AstroView 90 yields tack-sharp views of the rocky lunar surface with craters and mountainous regions visible in crisp, high-contrast detail. (telescope.com)
  • It's only other body in our solar system with an atmosphere and liquid on its surface. (space.com)
  • But it's less certain, says Brown, whether methane is truly part of a cycle, in which methane rain "makes it to the surface and pools into ponds or streams that then evaporate back into the atmosphere. (sciencenews.org)
  • Welcome to the surface of Saturn's giant moon Titan, the only known satellite with an appreciable atmosphere and all the changing weather that goes with it. (astronomy.com)
  • These results suggest that the pyridine:acetylene co-crystal could form in specific geologic contexts on Titan that allow for warm environments in which liquid pyridine could persist, and as such, this cryomineral may preserve the evidence of impact, cryovolcanism, or subsurface transport in surface materials. (bvsalud.org)
  • Titan has an inclination of about 27 degrees, which is similar to Earth's, meaning that sunlight reaches different areas with varying intensity due to the tilt. (scitechdaily.com)
  • As exotic as Titan might sound, in some ways it's one of the most hospitable worlds in the solar system. (nasa.gov)
  • Triton is the largest moon of Neptune, and one of the most exotic worlds in the solar system. (technologyreview.com)
  • On January 14, 2005, as the Huygens probe drifted through the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan, unexpectedly strong winds buffeted the craft. (astronomy.com)
  • A haze layer surrounds Titan at the northern pole and it is significantly reduced during the equinox because of atmospheric circulation patterns. (scitechdaily.com)
  • Saturn's largest moon Titan is an extraordinary and exceptional world. (nasa.gov)
  • Using radar data from the spacecraft, researchers have also determined that Ligeia Mare, the second largest sea on Titan, is about 525 feet (160 meters) deep. (space.com)