THE GREAT SPACE ADVENTURE by Ygua Ruben

Author:Ygua, Ruben [Ygua, Ruben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-10-09T16:00:00+00:00

THE GREAT SPACE ADVENTURE

Titan is the only known moon with a dense atmosphere, which gives it that particular color photographed by Cassini in 2004. Apparently its atmosphere could be composed

mainly of nitrogen, with 6% methane and complex

hydrocarbon compounds. Climate, including wind and rain, creates Earth-like surface features, such as dunes, rivers, lakes, seas (probably liquid methane and ethane), and

deltas, and has seasonal weather patterns just like on Earth.

With its liquids (both surface and underground) and its

nitrogen atmosphere, Titan's methane cycle is analogous to Earth's water cycle, albeit at a much lower temperature. In 2013, it was announced that the compound infrared

spectrometer on the Cassini probe detected propylene in

the lower atmosphere, making it the first definitive

detection of this substance anywhere in the Solar System except Earth.

On January 14, 2005 , the Huygens probe successfully descended onto Titan's surface in a region known as Adiri, obtaining images during its descent and on the surface. The panorama during the descent shows gentle hills with drainage channels. The channels seem to lead to a nearby region, wide, flat, and dark. It even seems to see a coastline and even islands, and what appears to be a sea of methane, all in a misty environment.

ESA scientists estimate that the probe could have descended on the dark region. The image taken after landing shows a flat surface covered by stones in the shape of rounded pebbles. The pebbles could be made up mostly of water ice. We must not forget that, on Titan, there is no liquid water on its surface, although there is frozen water; this ice is present in the form of rocks. The photos show a complex network of narrow drainage channels that descend from the bright mountains to lower flat, dark regions. There are lakes, coasts and islands strikingly similar to those on Earth; and it even rains, not when the ship landed, but it probably had recently.

However, the analogy ends here. Titan is a world governed by its low temperatures of –179 ° C with an atmosphere of nitrogen and methane. There, methane plays the role of water on Earth, forming clouds in its atmosphere; when it condenses on aerosols it forms a particulate methane shower that fills the streams with flowing black material. But now the canyons and lakes are dry because methane, like water on Earth, seeps under Titan's soil, leaving traces of organic matter on the surface. Cassini has discovered lakes and rivers of methane, as well as identified an equatorial continent and mountains up to 150 km high.

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