| Thread Tools |
27th May 2013, 08:39 | #1 |
[M] Reviewer Join Date: May 2010 Location: Romania
Posts: 148,597
| NASA creates the first topographic map of Titan, Saturn's largest moon Scientists observing Saturn's moon Titan with NASA's Cassini spacecraft have boldly gone where no man has gone before -- visually, anyway. Using radar imagery collected from nine years of Cassini flybys, researchers were able to patch together the first global topographic map of Titan, published in the July 2013 issue of Icarus. Ralph Lorenz, a member of the Cassini radar team at Johns Hopkins, said, "Titan has so much interesting activity -- like flowing liquids and moving sand dunes -- but to understand these processes it's useful to know how the terrain slopes." In particular, understanding the moon's terrain can reveal a lot about its dynamic climate system. Like Earth, Titan's atmosphere is composed primarily of nitrogen, but the liquids and vapors on the moon's surface are made of methane and other organic chemicals integral to the creation of complex life. By studying the relationship between atmosphere and terrain, researchers hope to learn more about the evolution of life in its earliest stages, and inspire curious minds to turn their eyes toward Titan. http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/26/t... ign=Engadget |
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
NASA's Lansat Takes Largest Photo Of Earth Ever | Stefan Mileschin | WebNews | 0 | 21st May 2013 06:44 |
NVIDIA's GeForce GTX Titan, Part 1: Titan For Gaming, Titan For Compute | Stefan Mileschin | WebNews | 0 | 20th February 2013 06:55 |
NASA crashes probes on the Moon | Stefan Mileschin | WebNews | 0 | 19th December 2012 08:06 |
Cassini snaps photos of vortex at Saturn's north pole | Stefan Mileschin | WebNews | 0 | 29th November 2012 07:50 |
Origin of Saturn's moons explained | Stefan Mileschin | WebNews | 0 | 22nd October 2012 08:28 |
NASA eyes space outpost above far side of the moon | Stefan Mileschin | WebNews | 0 | 25th September 2012 07:48 |
Vivadi Saturn HD50 50in Plasma & Media Center | jmke | WebNews | 0 | 21st May 2006 13:15 |
Nasa team sees explosion on Moon | jmke | WebNews | 0 | 3rd January 2006 17:14 |
Thread Tools | |
| |