It was taken by the probe Cassini and shows the reflection of the sun off of a lake of liquid hydrocarbons in the northern hemisphere of Saturn's moon Titan. The lake is named Kraken Mare and is about 400,000 square kilometers (150,000 square miles). By comparison, Lake Superior is 82,414 square kilometers (31,820 square miles).
No, it's not water, but it is exciting because it's proof that liquid does exist on the surface of a celestial body other than Earth. And that lake of hydrocarbons could represent an unimaginable source of energy that we'll be able to use someday.
Plans are already in the works to visit Titan and the Kraken Mare with the Titan Saturn System Mission, but liftoff won't be until after 2020.
The Cassini-Huygens probe was launched in 1997 and its primary mission objectives include studying the composition of Saturn's rings and the geology of Titan. So far, it has exceeded NASA's expectation and the 3.26B cost has been well spent.
The lake is named after the legendary sea monster. Tennyson wrote a poem about it:
Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides; above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumber'd and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages, and will lie
Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.
In our lifetimes we may never know if monsters lurk beneath Kraken Mare on Titan, but at least we know liquid hydrocarbons do. And science is always more real than science fiction.
Cheers!
--->Susan
No comments:
Post a Comment