Not long ago, an enormous telescope hovering beyond the moon and peering back to the dawn of the universe would have been science fiction, but the James Webb Space Telescope is out there today doing very real science. The next big advancement in space science has to start somewhere, and …
Read More »Crystalline Nitriles
Titan, Saturn’s icy moon, is an ideal planetary body to study prebiotic chemistry, origins of life, and the potential habitability of an extraterrestrial environment. It has a nitrogen-based atmosphere, complex organic chemistry fueled by radiation from the Sun and Saturn’s magnetosphere, hydrocarbon lakes, organic dunes on the equator, and seasonal …
Read More »NASA’s Dragonfly Mission
NASA’s Dragonfly mission will send a rotorcraft lander to the surface of Titan in the mid-2030s. Dragonfly was officially selected for flight by NASA as the fourth New Frontiers mission on 2019 June 27. Launch is planned for 2027, with Titan arrival in the mid-2030s, during the local northern hemisphere …
Read More »Titan’s Impact Craters
Using the spectral data collected by the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) onboard NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, a team of researchers has found a mixture of organic materials and water ice in nine impact craters on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. This colorized radar image, taken by NASA’s Cassini …
Read More »Cyclopropenylidene Detected
Using high sensitivity spectroscopic observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers have detected a small cyclic molecule called cyclopropenylidene (C3H2) in the atmosphere of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. This composite image shows an infrared view of Titan. In this image blue represents wavelengths centered at 1.3 …
Read More »Faster Than Expected
Titan Is Moving Away From Saturn 100 Times Faster Than Expected Cassini’s mission to Saturn may have ended years ago, but scientists analyzing the data sent back by the probe continue to draw new insights about the sixth planet from the sun and its system of moons. We now know …
Read More »Titan Migrates From Saturn
Faster than Previously Thought Saturn is orbited by 82 moons, and tidal friction within the giant planet causes the moons to migrate outwards. In a study published this week in the journal Nature Astronomy, researchers used two independent measurements obtained with NASA’s Cassini spacecraft to measure Titan’s orbital expansion rate. …
Read More »Cassini Spots Bright Clouds of Methane in Titan’s Atmosphere
NASA’s Cassini orbiter watched bright, feathery clouds of methane moving across the northern regions of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, on May 7, 2017. This image was taken on May 7, 2017, at a distance of 316,000 miles (508,000 km). The view is an orthographic projection centered on 57 …
Read More »Nvidia debuts new Titan Xp top-end GPU, now with Mac support
When Nvidia launched the GTX 1080 Ti at the end of February, it short-circuited its own highest-end product, the 6-month old Nvidia Titan X, thanks to higher clocks and a much lower price tag ($700, compared with $1,200). Now, Nvidia is rectifying that issue with a full-fat GP102 part — …
Read More »Titan Has ‘Electrically-Charged’ Hydrocarbon Sands
Low-density organic granules that cover the surface of Saturn’s moon Titan are ‘electrically charged,’ according to new experiments done by scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology. An artist’s rendering of the surface of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Image credit: Benjamin de Bivort, debivort.org / CC BY-SA 3.0. The research, …
Read More »