Titan | Universe Today

This is perhaps the coolest thing I've ever seen. Ray Villard, the news director for the Hubble Space Telescope, also writes a blog for Discovery called Cosmic Ray (love that name!) He recently wrote about a dragonfly-like robotic device being developed by the Technical University Delft, Wageningen University in the Netherlands. It's call the ExoFly, and Ray described it as a "dragonfly-on-steroids … a nimble flapping aerobot." It could be the next generation of robotic planetary explorers. It's a small, lightweight autonomous machine capable of flying, hovering, landing and taking off like an insect. Ray says this type of vehicle would "open up a new exploration niches that it not easily reachable by rovers or airborne vehicles on far flung worlds." Actually, it might work best in conjunction with a future big rover, flying ahead to search for interesting or dangerous terrain, and the rover would provide a "landing pad" for the ExoFly's home base. While the ExoFly may be small, its name sounds like a potential super hero, and its capabilities could be in the exploration super hero category, as well.

Take a look at the incredible video of the ExoFly below:
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While browsing through Cassini images of Saturn's moon Titan, astronomer Mike Brown and some colleagues noticed a recurring pattern of clouds appearing over the frigid moon's north pole. While a large, stable cloud has been visible in every image of Titan's north pole obtained since its discovery, Brown noticed bright "knots or streaks" in the cloud that appeared on some images but not others, or changed in images taken hours apart. Brown thought these bright features looked similar to cumulus clouds – or even like thunderheads. But how could tropical-like thunderheads be present on a moon where surface temperatures hover around -178°C (-289°F)? Brown believes these clouds are similar to winter-time lake-effect clouds found on Earth, and are due to convection and condensation occurring in the methane and ethane lakes on Titan.
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Titan not only has an atmosphere it has hydrocarbon lakes, oceans, sand dunes and now research has just been published proving Saturn's moon is sparkling with electrical activity. Scientists are in general agreement that organic molecules, the precursors to life on Earth, are a consequence of lightning in the atmosphere. Now, using data from the Huygens probe that descended through Titan's atmosphere in 2005 and continued transmitting for 90 minutes after touchdown, Spanish scientists have "unequivocally" proven that Titan has electrical storms too. The presence of electrical activity in the atmosphere is causing much excitement as this could mean that organic compounds may be found in abundance on the Titan surface.
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NASA's Cassini mission has detected liquid hydrocarbons on Saturn's moon Titan, in a large, glassy lake near the moon's south pole. Before the Cassini mission began, scientists thought Titan would have global oceans of methane, ethane and other light hydrocarbons. But after more than 40 close flybys of Titan by Cassini, data showed no global oceans exist. However hundreds of dark, lake-like features are present. Until now, it was not known whether these features were liquid or simply dark, solid material. Using Cassini's Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS), which identifies the chemical composition of objects by the way matter reflects light, a liquid ethane lake 235 kilometers (150 miles) long was detected. This makes Titan the only body in our solar system beyond Earth known to have liquid on its surface.
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Even before the Cassini spacecraft entered the Saturn system, scientists were predicting that Saturn’s moon Titan would be quite Earth-like. And every image that’s been returned of Titan’s clouds, lakes, rivers, and other landforms is proving them right. In 2005 Cassini’s imaging radar discovered a massive area of sand dunes around Titan’s equatorial region. Although these dark, windblown dunes look much like sand dunes on Earth, (they’ve been compared to mountainous drifts of coffee grounds) scientists are finding that the dunes are likely made of organic molecules that are not anything at all like sand.
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With each flyby, NASA's Cassini spacecraft has been building up the case that there are lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbons on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan. But now we get the stunning news that the planet might have vast oceans of water and ammonia underneath its surface as well.
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According to new Cassini data, Saturns largest moon, Titan, has "hundreds" times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the liquid fossil fuel deposits on Earth. This is impressive as Titan's 5150 km diameter is only about 50% larger than Earth's Moon and only a little larger than the planet Mercury. Titan's hydrocarbons cycle into the atmosphere, fall as rain and collect in lakes creating massive lakes and dunes.
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If you're planning a visit to Saturn's moon Titan, make sure you bring an umbrella. You'll need it. Not to protect you from water raining down; on frigid Titan, where temperatures dip below 180-degrees Celsius, all the water is completely frozen. No, according to scientists, there's a steady drizzle of liquid methane coming down in the mornings.
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Take a look at the image attached to this story. If you didn't know any better, you'd think you were looking at a rugged coastline somewhere on Earth. Maybe some island in the Mediterranean, or Norwegian fjord. Nope, you're looking at a completely alien world: Titan.
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Since the twin Voyager spacecraft flew past Saturn's moon Titan, Scientists have been excited about what its hazy atmosphere can tell us about the earliest days of our own planet. The Voyagers discovered that Titan's atmosphere is swirling with hydrocarbons and other complex organic molecules that could be the building blocks of life. The latest findings from NASA's Cassini spacecraft have uncovered these organic molecules floating higher in Titan's atmosphere than scientists originally thought possible.
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New images of Titan sent back by NASA's Cassini spacecraft show a large mountain range, extending about 150 km (93 miles) long. The mountains were seen on Cassini's most recently flyby on October 25, 2006, where the spacecraft captured the highest resolution infrared views of Saturn's largest moon. They reach about 1.5 km (almost 1 mile) high, and they're probably made of icy material, and coated with many layers of organic material.
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The thick organic haze that shrouds Titan is similar to what we had here on Earth billions of years ago; an environment that might have helped early life get a foothold. NASA researchers set up several experiments that reproduced the atmosphere in the early Earth and Titan today. The Earth experiments produced tremendous amounts of organic material, which could have been one of the ways life first appeared.
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This incredible photograph taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows two lakes on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan, attached by a thin channel. The image was taken during Cassini's most recent flyby, when it passed by on September 23, 2006. On Earth, they'd be filled with water, but it's just too cold on Titan; so these lakes contain a mixture of methane and ethane.
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NASA's Cassini spacecraft has found new evidence of hydrocarbon lakes in Titan's northern latitudes. In a new set of images, the dark patches - thought to be liquid methane or ethane - seem to have channels leading in and out, like rivers. Under Cassini's radar view, they're completely black, which means they don't reflect any radar signals back. This leads scientists to believe they're very smooth, liquid surfaces.
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This photograph shows Titan partly obscured behind Saturn and its rings. The image was taken from above the ringplane, and shows the side of the planet unlit by the Sun. Cassini captured this view on May 10, 2006 at a distance of approximately 2.9 million kilometers (1.8 million miles) from Saturn.
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