Shhhhh, don't tell Haliburton: 'Titan may have oily seas'...

[emad]

The BBC's Online science editor Dr David Whitehouse reports that
Titan - Saturn's major moon - may have a surface of oily lakes or oceans, according to the latest radar research. The giant Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico has transmitted a beam of radio waves towards Titan, and detected a faint echo over two hours later. Analysis of the dim signal suggests the presence of craters filled with oily oceans or lakes beneath the clouds.

In January 2005 a European Space Agency probe - Huygens - will parachute on to Titan's surface to see what is there. Titan is one of the most intriguing and significant bodies in the Solar System.

Optical observations cannot see through the photochemical smog that shrouds the world, but infrared and radar radiation can get through, revealing a varied surface beneath the clouds. Ground-based telescopes and the Hubble Space Telescope have produced coarse maps of the surface, showing what could be a continent of rock and ice surrounded by hydrocarbon seas or lakes.

Hydrocarbons - methane and ethane - could form oily oceans on the surface - whose waves lap against shorelines of ice stained by hydrocarbon drizzle from the sky.

<snip>

more:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3158496.stm

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Wanna bet NASA

gets funding now?

[emad]

2. Last time I followed that thread about planetary exploration

potential, someone posted a story about the Russians wanting to build a jail on the moon. Having given that some thought, it does seem appealling, seeing as NASA has repeatedly claimed there are no hydrocarbon fossil fuels up there or much mineral content worth exploiting.

Howabout relocating Camp X Ray, now that it's getting a bit overcrowded, for the GOP crew when they get busted for crimes against humanity?

[Zorba607]

3. wait a sec

I thought these hydrocarbons were formed from fossil plant and animal materials. What other ways do complex molecules like this form?

[Shyriath]

6. Actually...

There are hydrocarbons, and there are hydrocarbons. Some are fairly complex, but the ones mentioned (methane and ethane) are among the simplest. Methane is about the simplest one there is, in fact: CH4. One carbon, four hydrogens.

It was probably produced during the formation of the solar system (or earlier!), although organisms can make it too.

[NNadir]

7. Hydrocarbons are widely distributed throughout the universe.

Hydrocarbons are found throughout the universe. Hydrogen represents almost all of the universe's elemental mass but, with the exception of lithium and beryllium, the light elements, of which carbon is one are relatively common products of star's burning. (Heavy elements such as Gold or Uranium are mostly formed in supernovas.) Because of the prevalence of hydrogen, the universe as a whole is "reducing", although there are some places like earth, that are "oxidizing." As the universe is reducing, carbon is usually present as a reduced form, i.e. hydrocarbons.

It is probably true that the prebiotic earth contained significant amounts of methane and ethane, molecules that probably participated in the formation of life on earth. In its early history the earth was in fact a reducing environment. The evolution of photosynthetic bacteria changed this, producing oxygen. Many of the hydrocarbons were consumed once oxygen and ultimately changed, through intermediate carbon dioxide via photosynthesis into living matter, some of which was deposited as oil, coal and natural gas.

[papau]

4. Does this mean Dino's were on Titan? n/t

:-)

[emad]

5. Perhaps David Ike has a theory on this one

he seems to be the No.1 expert on reptilian lifeforms in the galaxy....