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Science Photos

toddjh said:
I've always liked Titan, and was really jazzed about Huygens landing. Rivers! On a moon! It's great.
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Are they really sure those ridges the Huygens probe photographed are actually rivers and not something else? I seem to recall the probe didn't directly photograph any liquid methane (despite the fact that the temperatures and pressures at the surface do mean that the methane in the atmosphere must precipitate/condense out).
 
tracer said:
Are they really sure those ridges the Huygens probe photographed are actually rivers and not something else? I seem to recall the probe didn't directly photograph any liquid methane (despite the fact that the temperatures and pressures at the surface do mean that the methane in the atmosphere must precipitate/condense out).
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I thought the consensus was that they were riverbeds that were now dry, but I'm no expert. After the data were analyzed, the ESA announced that Huygens had detected liquid methane just below the surface, indicating recent rain. I also seem to remember some people noticing what looked like raindrops on the camera lens when the surface images were put together into an animation, but I can't find it now.

What other geological processes could carve channels that look so much like riverbeds? I'm curious now. :)

Jeremy
 
Iapetus looks like it was pressed out of a mould.

dn6860-1_500.jpg


I think the current theory is that the 10 km-high ridge is a result of scraping along the edge of Saturn's rings at some point.
 
Matabiri said:
Iapetus looks like it was pressed out of a mould.
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That's the trouble with rush jobs. When everything has to be created in just seven days, there's always a tendency to cut corners.

"I've not got time to trim it properly so I'll put it in orbit round Saturn; that's millions of miles away, they'll never notice".
 
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