Titans seas in the sun: Stunning image shows light glinting off Saturn moons biggest polar ocean Mirror-like reflection is in the south of Titans largest sea, Kraken Mare Reflection just north of an island archipelago separating two separate parts of the sea With its thick atmosphere and organic-rich chemistry, Titan resembles a frozen version of Earth several billion years ago, before life began pumping oxygen into our atmosphere By Mark Prigg for MailOnline Published: 22:57 GMT, 30 October 2014 | Updated: 23:14 GMT, 30 October 2014 It is an incredible image of oceans on another world. Nasa today released this incredible mosaic showing the sun glinting off polar seas on titan, one of Saturns moons. This mirror-like reflection, known as the specular point, is in the south of Titans largest sea, Kraken Mare, just north of an island archipelago separating two separate parts of the sea. This near-infrared, color mosaic from NASAs Cassini spacecraft shows the sun glinting off of Titans north polar seas. This mirror-like reflection, known as the specular point, is in the south of Titans largest sea, Kraken Mare, just north of an island archipelago separating two separate parts of the sea. +2 This near-infrared, color mosaic from NASAs Cassini spacecraft shows the sun glinting off of Titans north polar seas. This mirror-like reflection, known as the specular point, is in the south of Titans largest sea, Kraken Mare, just north of an island archipelago separating two separate parts of the sea. The near-infrared, color mosaic from NASAs Cassini spacecraft shows the sun glinting off Titans north polar seas. While Cassini has captured, separately, views of the polar seas (seePIA17470) and the sun glinting off of them (see PIA12481 and PIA18433) in the past, this is the first time both have been seen together in the same view. The sunglint, also called a specular reflection, is the bright area near the 11 oclock position at upper left. Mind-boggling! Science creates computer that can decode your thoughts and put them into words Technology could offer lifeline for stroke victims and people hit by degenerative diseases In the study, a computer analyzed brain activity and reproduced words that people were hearing By Tamara Cohen UPDATED: 00:49 EST, 1 February 2012 47 View comments It sounds like the stuff of science fiction dreams - or nightmares. Scientists believe they have found a way to read our minds, using a computer program that can decode brain activity in our brains and put it into words. They say it could offer a lifeline to those whose speech has been affected by stroke or degenerative disease, but many will be concerned about the implications of a technique that can eavesdrop on thoughts and reproduce them. 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The image of the Moon has been magnified to about twice its relative size. rc/NASA/GSFC/NOAA/USGS REUTERS...A...SCI Oceans are as old as the Earth: New study finds meteorites... Share this article Share This particular sunglint was so bright as to saturate the detector of Cassinis Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) instrument, which captures the view, Nasa said. It is also the sunglint seen with the highest observation elevation so far -- the sun was a full 40 degrees above the horizon as seen from Kraken Mare at this time -- much higher than the 22 degrees seen in PIA18433. The southern portion of Kraken Mare (the area surrounding the specular feature toward upper left) displays a bathtub ring - a bright margin of evaporate deposits - which indicates that the sea was larger at some point in the past and has become smaller due to evaporation. TITAN With its thick atmosphere and organic-rich chemistry, Titan resembles a frozen version of Earth several billion years ago, before life began pumping oxygen into our atmosphere. Because Titan is smaller than Earth, its gravity doesnt hold onto its gaseous envelope as tightly, so the atmosphere extends 370 miles (595 kilometres) into space. As on Earth, the climate is driven mostly by changes in the amount of sunlight that comes with the seasons, although the seasons on Titan are about seven Earth years long. Titans water is liquid methane, CH4, better known on Earth as natural gas. Regular Earth-water, H2O, would be frozen solid on Titan where the surface temperature is -180°C (-292°F). With Titans low gravity and dense atmosphere, methane raindrops could grow twice as large as Earths raindrops. As well as this, they would fall more slowly, drifting down like snowflakes. But scientists think it rains perhaps only every few decades. The deposits are material left behind after the methane & ethane liquid evaporates, somewhat akin to the saline crust on a salt flat. The highest resolution data from this flyby -- the area seen immediately to the right of the sunglint -- cover the labyrinth of channels that connect Kraken Mare to another large sea, Ligeia Mare. Ligeia Mare itself is partially covered in its northern reaches by a bright, arrow-shaped complex of clouds. Titan has a global circulation pattern in which warm air in the summer hemisphere wells up from the surface and enters the stratosphere, slowly making its way to the winter pole. There, the air mass sinks back down, cooling as it descends, which allows the stratospheric methane clouds to form. +2 Titan has a global circulation pattern in which warm air in the summer hemisphere wells up from the surface and enters the stratosphere, slowly making its way to the winter pole. There, the air mass sinks back down, cooling as it descends, which allows the stratospheric methane clouds to form. The clouds are made of liquid methane droplets, and could be actively refilling the lakes with rainfall. The view was acquired during Cassinis August 21, 2014, flyby of Titan, also referred to as T104 by the Cassini team. The view contains real color information, although it is not the natural color the human eye would see. Here, red in the image corresponds to 5.0 microns, green to 2.0 microns, and blue to 1.3 microns. These wavelengths correspond to atmospheric windows through which Titans surface is visible. The unaided human eye would see nothing but haze, as in PIA12528.
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 12:36:19 +0000
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