Ripples on the surface of Saturn's largest moon point to methane lakes - a possible home for alternative life forms
The moon Titan, which orbits Saturn, has many characteristics similar to Earth, such as clouds, rain and lakes. Now scientists know that there is another common feature: both places have waves. Cameras aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft recently captured what appear to be ripples on the surface of Titan's largest methane lakes, a signal that scientists have searched for in vain for a long time.
How deep are Titan's lakes?
"I was already beginning to despair and think that we won't see them at all," says Jason Barnes, a physicist from the University of Idaho who presented the evidence discovered at the 45th Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference held in March 2014 in The Woodlands, Texas. If the discovery is recovered it will mark the first time that waves have been detected outside the Earth.
Barnes and his colleagues found patterns in the reflected sunlight from the surface of the northern lake called Punga Mare. The researchers interpreted the pattern as two-centimeter-high waves. But another explanation is also possible, skeptics warn: Ponga Mara may not be a deep lake but a muddy plain, and that the shallow layer of liquid covering it may produce a unique light signature. "It's compelling but not conclusive," says Jonathan Lunin, a planetary scientist at Cornell University who was not involved in the study.
Waves on Titan are important for several reasons. Such a discovery confirms the hypothesis that Titan does have deep reservoirs of methane and ethane, the two main liquids on this moon. If there is life on Titan, it is probably primitive, so scientists believe that the best place to look for chemical structures capable of self-organization is a large body of liquid, one that creates waves.
Real liquid bodies would also make it easier to send a robotic spacecraft to test the feasibility of life on Titan. After all, landing in liquid is easier than landing on harder material or solid ground.
By 2017, scientists will have a definitive answer as to whether what they see is actually caused by waves. So far, Cassini has observed the moon in the northern winter season, when winds are weak. With the coming of spring, during the coming years, the winds will get stronger. If the strong winds do raise waves across the lakes, the spacecraft should pick up a clear signature of them, and they should be two inches high.
The article was published with the permission of Scientific American Israel
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I'm just an answer
And on the other hand - we will surely learn a lot from it. And beyond that, if we start dividing the resources between too many studies, none of the studies will be successful. Even if this research doesn't find anything, we still learned - we'll be sure we didn't overlap.
I assume (and hope) that those who finance these studies make the right considerations.
Nissim, I agree with you that there is a chance to find diverse life forms, with different chemical compositions. But you and I know that the huge resource investment, to look for them precisely in the planet near us, because of a few waves of methane, is similar to investing all the money in one chance card.
That's why I'm sure that the research is important in itself, as much research, and the search for life is an "excuse" for public opinion.
Besides, holidays are liberating and happy!
I just asked
No, not pathetic at all. It is possible and under different conditions that life forms completely different from ours can arise. There may have been many life forms on Earth. God may have created life once in every possible place.
Don't you think it's pathetic to react without thinking? 🙂
Isn't it pathetic to look for life, in a place where the chances of the possibility of life are slim, when even on the fertile earth the possibility of the formation of life was caused by coincidences (or a deliberate hand) that are rare at historical levels?
But the research itself is welcome, without a doubt.
Papa Nostradamus, you are a troll and you will not see food from me, last time I addressed you
Haim Thank you... strange that such an important detail does not appear in the news.
It sounds elementary to me to mention such a thing.
Nostradamus my dear son
Tell me, St. Augustine should have wasted his precious time preaching to you. A disobedient son like you. Come home quickly and I will reteach you moral laws. You must read the "Gospel of Luke".
Nostradamus
For some time now I have been reading what your father is asking of you and you are constantly embarrassing him. He wants to see you satisfied. He would very much like to see you don the robes of the Archbishop of Canterbury
Only if you come too Julius, my friend
Nostradamus
Do you want to be the first robot to fly to both Titan and Europa?
Eyal
The Huygens spacecraft was on its way to landing on Titan, its cameras were constantly working and transmitting images of what entered their field of view.
I didn't understand, what is in the picture? It looks more like an artist's painting than a photograph, also the angle of the shot seems to be of a vehicle that has landed on the surface and not of a spacecraft circling the planet from above.
Are the waves in the photo 2 centimeters high?
I wrote about the possibility of waves in Titan's methane lakes in my article "Winds on Planets and Moons" from 2002
In the chapter on Titan, a link is attached.
https://www.hayadan.org.il/winds-on-other-planets-220902
Finally, new and important research, especially if they send robots. But Europa's moon is more interesting.