CONFIRMED ** TITAN'S ATMOSPHERE HAS SAME % NITROGEN AS EARTH AND IT HAS 50% MORE PRESSURE **

Very kewl...was just checking Titan out saturday night with the Telescope...

GLP's telescope?

Nope...My wife`s...Saturns rings are truly awesome to see in your own telescope..Can see Saturns moons real clear also but not like picts you posted of course

May 9 2011

Saturn's Moon Titan May Have Been Planetary Punching Bag

An untold number of cosmic impacts could have created the mysteriously thick atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon Titan, suggest experiments with laser guns.

Titan has always stood out as the only moon in the solar system with a substantial atmosphere. In fact, the surface pressure on Titan is 50 percent greater than the pressure on Earth.

:Titan:

The main ingredient of Titan's atmosphere is nitrogen, just as it is on Earth. Where this nitrogen came from has long been debated. For instance, it could be primordial, accumulating as Titan formed, or it could have originated later.

Weighing the options

In 2005, the Huygens probe carried by NASA's Cassini spacecraft to Saturn ruled out a primordial origin for this nitrogen. Titan's atmosphere apparently has extremely low levels of the isotope argon-36, while high amounts are expected in an atmosphere rich in primordial nitrogen.

There are a number of other explanations for how this atmospheric nitrogen might have formed after Titan's birth. For instance, sunlight in Titan's atmosphere might have broken apart ammonia, a molecule made of nitrogen and hydrogen.

However, nearly all these suggestions require that Titan formed at relatively high temperatures, which would have led the moon to differentiate into a rocky core and an icy mantle layer, and Cassini's radar scans suggested that Titan is not fully differentiated. Comets loaded with nitrogen might have delivered it to Titan, but that would have also led to higher levels of argon-36 than currently seen.

Now scientists in Japan suggest that countless numbers of asteroids and comets slamming into ammonia ice on Titan could have converted it to nitrogen gas several hundred million years after the moon's formation. "Our results suggest that hypervelocity impacts have played a key role," researcher Yasuhito Sekine, a planetary scientist at the University of Tokyo, told SPACE.com.

Source [link to ca.news.yahoo.com]

Am I the only one who thinks that looks like another earth type of planet?

May 9 2011

Saturn's Moon Titan May Have Been Planetary Punching Bag

An untold number of cosmic impacts could have created the mysteriously thick atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon Titan, suggest experiments with laser guns.

Titan has always stood out as the only moon in the solar system with a substantial atmosphere. In fact, the surface pressure on Titan is 50 percent greater than the pressure on Earth.

:Titan:

The main ingredient of Titan's atmosphere is nitrogen, just as it is on Earth. Where this nitrogen came from has long been debated. For instance, it could be primordial, accumulating as Titan formed, or it could have originated later.

Weighing the options

In 2005, the Huygens probe carried by NASA's Cassini spacecraft to Saturn ruled out a primordial origin for this nitrogen. Titan's atmosphere apparently has extremely low levels of the isotope argon-36, while high amounts are expected in an atmosphere rich in primordial nitrogen.

There are a number of other explanations for how this atmospheric nitrogen might have formed after Titan's birth. For instance, sunlight in Titan's atmosphere might have broken apart ammonia, a molecule made of nitrogen and hydrogen.

However, nearly all these suggestions require that Titan formed at relatively high temperatures, which would have led the moon to differentiate into a rocky core and an icy mantle layer, and Cassini's radar scans suggested that Titan is not fully differentiated. Comets loaded with nitrogen might have delivered it to Titan, but that would have also led to higher levels of argon-36 than currently seen.

Now scientists in Japan suggest that countless numbers of asteroids and comets slamming into ammonia ice on Titan could have converted it to nitrogen gas several hundred million years after the moon's formation. "Our results suggest that hypervelocity impacts have played a key role," researcher Yasuhito Sekine, a planetary scientist at the University of Tokyo, told SPACE.com.

Source [link to ca.news.yahoo.com]

All of these worlds are yours to use
Except Europa
Attempt no landing there

Awesome!! there has to be a way to terraform it :)

May 9 2011

Saturn's Moon Titan May Have Been Planetary Punching Bag

An untold number of cosmic impacts could have created the mysteriously thick atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon Titan, suggest experiments with laser guns.

Titan has always stood out as the only moon in the solar system with a substantial atmosphere. In fact, the surface pressure on Titan is 50 percent greater than the pressure on Earth.

:Titan:

The main ingredient of Titan's atmosphere is nitrogen, just as it is on Earth. Where this nitrogen came from has long been debated. For instance, it could be primordial, accumulating as Titan formed, or it could have originated later.

Weighing the options

In 2005, the Huygens probe carried by NASA's Cassini spacecraft to Saturn ruled out a primordial origin for this nitrogen. Titan's atmosphere apparently has extremely low levels of the isotope argon-36, while high amounts are expected in an atmosphere rich in primordial nitrogen.

There are a number of other explanations for how this atmospheric nitrogen might have formed after Titan's birth. For instance, sunlight in Titan's atmosphere might have broken apart ammonia, a molecule made of nitrogen and hydrogen.

However, nearly all these suggestions require that Titan formed at relatively high temperatures, which would have led the moon to differentiate into a rocky core and an icy mantle layer, and Cassini's radar scans suggested that Titan is not fully differentiated. Comets loaded with nitrogen might have delivered it to Titan, but that would have also led to higher levels of argon-36 than currently seen.

Now scientists in Japan suggest that countless numbers of asteroids and comets slamming into ammonia ice on Titan could have converted it to nitrogen gas several hundred million years after the moon's formation. "Our results suggest that hypervelocity impacts have played a key role," researcher Yasuhito Sekine, a planetary scientist at the University of Tokyo, told SPACE.com.

Source [link to ca.news.yahoo.com]

Awesome!! there has to be a way to terraform it :)

If you watch the movie made by the Huygens probe, you will see something go across the screen against the current of the methane creek it landed in. I think it was alive. No way to tell.

That said, the picture of Titan that is in the OP is a false color infrared picture. The actual moon looks tan and blank from space.

The nitrogen doesn't matter. It could be Xenon or any other gas (except chlorine of course). What matters is the oxygen content and it's not there. You could not breathe Titan's atmosphere, It would kill you.

Still, the methane rivers and lakes are impressive.

May 9 2011

Saturn's Moon Titan May Have Been Planetary Punching Bag

An untold number of cosmic impacts could have created the mysteriously thick atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon Titan, suggest experiments with laser guns.

Titan has always stood out as the only moon in the solar system with a substantial atmosphere. In fact, the surface pressure on Titan is 50 percent greater than the pressure on Earth.



The main ingredient of Titan's atmosphere is nitrogen, just as it is on Earth. Where this nitrogen came from has long been debated. For instance, it could be primordial, accumulating as Titan formed, or it could have originated later.

Weighing the options

In 2005, the Huygens probe carried by NASA's Cassini spacecraft to Saturn ruled out a primordial origin for this nitrogen. Titan's atmosphere apparently has extremely low levels of the isotope argon-36, while high amounts are expected in an atmosphere rich in primordial nitrogen.

There are a number of other explanations for how this atmospheric nitrogen might have formed after Titan's birth. For instance, sunlight in Titan's atmosphere might have broken apart ammonia, a molecule made of nitrogen and hydrogen.

However, nearly all these suggestions require that Titan formed at relatively high temperatures, which would have led the moon to differentiate into a rocky core and an icy mantle layer, and Cassini's radar scans suggested that Titan is not fully differentiated. Comets loaded with nitrogen might have delivered it to Titan, but that would have also led to higher levels of argon-36 than currently seen.

Now scientists in Japan suggest that countless numbers of asteroids and comets slamming into ammonia ice on Titan could have converted it to nitrogen gas several hundred million years after the moon's formation. "Our results suggest that hypervelocity impacts have played a key role," researcher Yasuhito Sekine, a planetary scientist at the University of Tokyo, told SPACE.com.

Source [link to ca.news.yahoo.com]

Thanks for the read OP

Imagine in our lifetimes seeing pictures Beemed back at us from the surface. Seeing Saturn in the night sky. Can only dream