NASA scientists said Wednesday they had found liquid on Saturn’s moon Titan, only the second body in the solar system after Earth to have fluid on its surface.
The groundbreaking discovery was made after analysis of instruments on the US-European Cassini probe, the spacecraft that has been orbiting Saturn since 2004 following a 3.5 billion-kilometer (2.2 billion miles) voyage.
Oliver it isn’t water.
“NASA scientists have concluded that at least one of the large lakes observed on Saturn’s moon Titan contains liquid hydrocarbons, and have positively identified the presence of ethane. This makes Titan the only body in our solar system beyond Earth known to have liquid on its surface.
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“This is the first observation that really pins down that Titan has a surface lake filled with liquid,” said Bob Brown of the University of Arizona, Tucson.
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Liquid ethane was identified using a technique that removed the interference from the atmospheric hydrocarbons.
The visual and mapping instrument observed a lake, Ontario Lacus, in Titan’s south polar region during a close Cassini flyby in December 2007. The lake is roughly 20,000 square miles (7,800 square miles) in area, slightly larger than North America’s Lake Ontario.
“Detection of liquid ethane confirms a long-held idea that lakes and seas filled with methane and ethane exist on Titan,” said Larry Soderblom, a Cassini interdisciplinary scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Ariz. ”
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/media/cassini-20080730.html
Actually, Oliver, they found liquid hydrocarbons, not water. Still cool though, since there are some theories that suggest life could form in such hydrocarbon soup.
Or maybe we could begin drilling on Titan! Quick, somebody call Halliburton.
Well my main point is for a long time it was assumed our solar system didn’t have any of this stuff, then its like WATER ON MARS! LIQUID ON TITAN! Etc.
Surprising to me that Hollywood has not caught up and set a sci-fi flick or two in hydrospheres.
Some reporter decided to vary their word choice without bothering to look up the definition of “fluid”. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus